Day 23: Put your 4's Up. It's Week 4 | Alex Carruthers

Que dias mas explendida!  Today, we took a bus from Villafranca to Laguna.  It was quite nice to give ourselves a break, and to experience the modern way of traveling.

Come on.  If you read that and believed me, you might as well unsubscribe.  I am offended and so is St. James.  The Memphis Pilgrims do not take buses.  We do what we do best: walk.  It’s what we do. It’s what we know.

Our alburgue last night was hot.  We opened the front door of it to try to release some of the heat.  Naturally, I was the closest to the front door, but I was willing to sacrifice myself if a wild boar came bustling into our room just to get the room down a few degrees.  I even walked outside to the porch of the albergue in my boxers to try to cool down.  Fortunately, I was interrupting the albergue master and his wife eating a watermelon together.  I apologized and they laughed.  A good moment.

This morning, the Memphis Pilgrims rolled out of bed and headed out on our walk.  As we were leaving the great town of Villafanca, we saw a group of about 50 people standing in the round-about.  I mean we thought it was Mardi Gras or something because it looked like some kind of party.  When we approached them, we heard whispers saying “that’s them! those are the Memphis Pilgrims,” and finally a girl shyly came up to us and explained that they were lost and were not sure which way to go.  Murray and I just kind of looked around and saw a shell and an arrow and said, “This is the way.”  They must have thought we had a secret map or something, but we were just doing what anyone does. Follow the yellow arrows.  Regardless, they were grateful, and I tried to get a selfie of Murray and I leading this village of people, but it was very blurry.  For that, I am sorry.

The hike today was enjoyable.  We walked through several villages which is nice because they are good markers to keep up with how far we’ve gone for the day.  It was a relatively easy hike until we hit what the kids are calling a “mountain.”  It was pretty steep and big.  We hiked about 6 kilometers up and said that we were gonna stay in Laguna.  It is very small and overlooks the mountains of the Galicia region.  As you might imagine, it is beautiful.

Day 23 is in the books.  Buen Camino.

Picture: The bandanna has been making an appearance.  It's week 4.  It's granola, and the other pilgrims probably love it.  Vamos perros.

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