Food and Friends

 Day 5 - Lasbros

We said goodbye to a few pilgrims who will be ending their planned Camino ‘leg’  for the year.  Two of the experiences of the Camino which we read about were the food and the relationships that you make on the trail.  We are thoroughly enjoying both of these dimensions of Camino life.  By eating meals in the gites you share a table with complete strangers from around the world.  Conversations last long into the evening.  Though we walk by ourselves at our pace, we constantly meet with up with familiar people and strike up conversation. While the locals don’t speak much English, about half of the pilgrims can speak a little English. The majority of pilgrims are French but there are a surprising number of other Europeans and hardly any Americans. We quickly get attached to these friends and been able to lend assistance and receive assistance. We have even had the opportunity to pray with a couple of pilgrims that have had injuries.  The food is wonderful as each gite features some of the best local dishes.  Today we walked mostly through deserted forests and a few small villages.  The weather has gotten warmer and we are putting a bigger dent in our 4 liters of water (8 lbs !!) that we carry.  After 14 miles we settled into another small hamlet gite with two nuns. We enjoyed listening to their afternoon vespers as we enjoyed a late afternoon nap. At dinner we met some more people.  One couple was from Kenya with a daughter who lives in Vancouver BC. Their English helped us converse the evening away.  Our dinner was beef stew from local beef, the most prized inFrance.