El Camino, Day 4

Day 4 (Friday June 6, 2014) Arzua to Cruceiro do Pedrouzo, 20 kilometers My hip was still really sore, so I sent my pack ahead to the next town. You can have them shipped for 3 euros. That’s another nice thing about backpacking in a more populated area. I don’t think I would have made it with my pack. My hip was still really sore, even without it. We got rained on a ton! But we had fun with it. We walked with Alvaro and Amaya, and I mostly walked with Amaya (she had a really sore knee) and Kathleen and Alvaro walked a little ahead of us. I loved it because I got to chat the whole day with Amaya in Spanish. Her family is from the Basque region, and she speaks Basque (actually called eusquero). I got to talk to her about Spanish and Spain. She told me about the cultures in the different regions, and recommended books to read. It was so fun for me. About half way through, it was just pouring REALLY hard, so we stopped at a cafe for a bit. It was a really fun place. There were shirts from all over hung everywhere, and the walls were covered in writing in tons of different languages. I got some mint tea, a banana, and some nuts. Everything else had bread! But that was enough to keep me going. And we had a blast squished in there with all the other pilgrims. Everyone was sharing tables and food. We passed around our chocolate. We ended up talking to some Germans for a while. It’s amazing how everyone communicates. I felt like I could talk to anyone! I guess knowing Spanish and English had a lot to do with it. We were pretty soaked, but it was still a fun day!