3.5.19
Before writing this post, I consulted my journal to remind myself of what happened today. My entry is eight lines long and was written nine days after the event.

Unfortunately, it is the beginning of the end for my journal, for after catching up with the entries from 3rd to 9th May, I stopped writing it. We arrived in Santiago on 16th May so the last week’s blog posts will have to be written from memory and using Instagram, which I managed to update for the duration of the Camino.

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Today, we took our leave of Valverde and set off down the road (side). We walked for just under three hours before arriving in San Martin del Camino where we decided to stop.

The journey to San Martin was unspectacular – our path was sandwiched between the road and fields with hardly any variation. I don’t say this from memory but the witness of my photographs. After the first few days of the Camino, I started to take more and more; the only days when I didn’t was if the path was monotonous. Today, I only took 15 photos, relatively few for me, so that tells me that there wasn’t much to see. The storks in the photograph below were an exception. It was always heart raising to see them in their nests, built on tall ruins or atop churches.

I regret very much not keeping up with my journal – I’m pretty sure that when we set out, we didn’t intend to stop at San Martin but I can’t remember where our original destination was meant to be: Hospital del Orbigo and Santibanez de Valdeigleisia are in my mind but why?

Actually, Santibanez is where we walked to tomorrow so that’s probably why – did we mean to go there today, though, but were waylaid by illness or the heat?

The weather was very hot and when we arrived in San Martin, the albergue had a little swimming pool. Unfortunately, it was too early in the year to use it.

Not to worry, quoth I, a shower will do.

Yeeeah. About the shower. Naturally, you would expect the men’s and women’s showers to be behind closed doors. At this albergue, though, there were no doors. Once you stepped out of the shower unit, anyone walking down the corridor could see you. While this was not ideal, there was – at least – room in the shower to hang one’s towel and clothes up away from the shower tap and so dry off and get dressed before stepping out into full view of passers-by.

If the albergue showers were a bit of a let down, the albergue cat was not. He wandered about at will and was happy to accept strokes from Ellena. Our dorm was a small one with four bunk beds, all of which were taken. We thought we would have trouble with one woman who had starey eyes and asked with a bit too much purpose if the lights would come on at six o’clock tomorrow morning but in the end she didn’t turn them on and left before everyone else with admirable quietness.

The only other thing of note to happen today is that I ran out of money. Ellena and I went in search of a cash machine in San Martin but found nothing. The Camino is a cash economy so I was very fortunate that Ellena paid for me until I was able to refund her – either directly or, as usually happened, by paying for things for her.

Oh yes, I just remembered one other thing: Ellena thought she lost her I.D. card (or was it her pilgrim’s passport?); either way, a frantic search followed that led to the miscreant’s discovery. I can’t tell you how scary it was whenever you couldn’t find your passport (or I.D.) or credencial. In different ways, losing them were potential Camino killers. I mislaid my wallet and pilgrim’s passport once or twice and had my heart in my mouth until I found them again.