‘The Way’ side attraction

 

Day 51 - Itero del Castillo 

     Before leaving our hostel, we got the full connection that the hostel owner has to Martin Sheen. Martin walked the Camino with his grandson Taylor in 2004 (before the production of the Way).  One evening, they had dinner at the hostel owner’s parents’ house.  His sister and Taylor fell in love and ended up getting married.  She now lives in Los Angeles with Taylor, but is visiting her parents now with their daughter.

       Though the morning was chilly, the sun soon warmed things up, and it was a pleasant temperature for walking all day.  We are definitely in the Meseta; plowed up wheat fields as far as the eye can see.  It reminds us of the Palouse (with medieval towns scattered around.  Some interesting pine trees skirt some of the canyons.  The fields were full of rocks, and there were piles of stacked rocks that farmers have been piling for centuries.

     We walked most of the morning with Sophie, a Korean flight attendant who lives in New Zealand.  The long afternoon was spent together alone, without a pilgrim in sight for miles.  There was one significant ridge to climb up and over, otherwise it was a fairly broad level road.  Our 19 miles today is a warm up for our 21 miles tomorrow.

     We are staying in a municipal hostel that is off the Camino a little, and there are only three other pilgrims in the hostel.  It is eerily quiet for a hostel. The hostel is managed by the only business in town, the bar down the street; where we had to check in and have our dinner.  We ate dinner with our bunk room mates who are a nice couple from Brazil who only knew a smudging of English. And since our Portuguese is non-existent, it was a challenge communicating.  They pulled out all their English skills together and we had a pleasant‘conversation’.