Tuesday December 2 nd. 2014 Carrion De Los Condes 30 km.

Tosca enjoyes herself

] Statue of a pilgrim  

 dormitory in the albergue

We are not lucky with the weather. After a nice day of about 30 easy kilometers in the sun, with only about 30 min. time wasted by searching the road in a village, I arrived before the evening at the monastery inn. All taken care of. Everywhere notes of what one should do and what should not. This is a little against my desire for freedom, but allé. Leon is 5 minutes away, outside the city walls, at a river, tied to his line, having a feast on lush grass. Tosca is resting outside in the cold on a plastic bag and on top of the bag a piece of cardboard. It’s freezing here at night, so let’s see what I can rustle again for Tosca. Problem with that rustling is that you have to go to sleep latest and have to get up first in order not to be seen. So a day with much whistling, singing, good mood, until …. And yes, again the same problem, finding a hostel for tomorrow. The first call suddenly breaks the phone connection. The other albergue appears to be closed according to a tape, or ” dial another number”, or “call back later”. Or no dogs. Or there is no telephone connection. Often if the proposed albergue fails, there are few alternatives. Those are either closed, or too far away. Should I still go camping tomorrow in this freezing cold? Here, in the “meseta”, are few camping facilities: looks like North Holland, so vast and flat, few trees to tie Leon to. And then the terror strikes me again. But yes, the enterprise is still successful, so no panic. The broken plastic saddle bag is rolled up and stuffed in one of the 4 backpacks. I have devised a modified pack system of Leon and it works. I am satisfied with today. Tomorrow another day, another dollar.

After putting my stuff in the dorm, I had a conversation with Gregory, an American from Colorado, 53 y. old. Dinner together? he asked. Pilgrims Menu, 9 E, 3 courses. OK. We talked about all kind of things. Putin, who has put in all his KGB officers in the Ukraine, to create unrest there. And watch my words, the same will Putin do in the Baltic states, like Hitler at that time with, among others Sudetenland In Tsjechia, he said. Gregory’s grandmother was a Native American. He talked about how the Indians were exterminated by whites who deliberately brought clothing contaminated with chickenpox. The indigenous children had no resistance there and died like rats. And so a bit of everything. To make it more personal I asked him if he had children. Perhaps, he said, maybe in Chechnya. I said, go there, pull him / her a hair and do DNA testing. I watch out, he said. Too dangerous. So yet again it was a fascinating evening.
Tosca must stay outside tonight anyway, because a kind of sacristan is constantly sneeking around checking everybody and everything. I think she lives here in this monastery. So far about today.