As it turns out it just spit a bit of rain at us today, not enough to take any note of, and as you can see our boots are sitting in the sun to dry. It was an ugly afternoon yesterday, but my boots stayed pretty dry thanks to my light rain pants. Annemarie didn’t wear hers and her boots were quite wet. The newspaper trick got rid of most of the moisture, but the outsides needed a bit of solar help.
From time to time you need to take a little time on Camino to reorganize and catch up a few domestic things, and we did just that today. However, because it was open and there are tour bus loads around we popped in to see the beautiful cathedral when we saw that the doors were open as we passed by.
Inside there were 6-8 priests sitting by the choir seats basically chanting. Their sound was beautiful and it reminded us so much of the Buddhist priests in Japan when we attended morning prayers while staying overnight at some of the temples.
There must have been only 6 or 7 of us sitting and listening. Quite magical. They then filed off and came back a few minutes later for a service which was when we departed.
The ourist informarion was open and we went through the cool morning to find out where everything was located. We found a small knife to replace the one I’d sadly lost a few days ago and that we’ve used for just about everything, including our picnics along the way. We then collected our somewhat less ham clean laundry and headed for the laundromat where we found the three other Canadian pilgrims Danny had told us about a week ago. Two from Dawson Creek and a third from Edmonton. They’d gone to Lourdes from Oloron and we ended up arriving at the foot of the Col du Somport a day ahead of them. We were much more fortunate as we crossed in the sun while they crossed in the horrible rain storms of yesterday and basically in their words were washed out. They took the train down from Canfranc Estacion on arrival Sunday and are sorting themselves out today as well. They commented that having lived in Prince Rupert previously that yesterday’s rain exceeded most of their experiences there. I explained about the hurricane remnants and they were quite unaware. What they did tell us which was very nice, was that they knew of of Alzheimer’s Camino from the Camino Forum and the CCofP website. Nice that our efforts to get the word out continue to pay off. They will finish in a few days at Puenta la Reina. We laughed amongst us that with the politics between our two provinces a bit strained that it was pretty funny that the three of them were walking together! We all agreed not to advise our various politicians:)
Then it was down to the serious business of laundry. We put our stuff into the left washer and then went to purchase supplies at a nearby grocery. On our return we were told that we’d used the machine to wash pet clothes and stuff. We look and sure enough that was correct. Then laughed and commented that it was still a cleaner place than where our clothes had been the last 4 weeks! Also we saved a euro in the process.
On our way back to drop off our clothes we stopped briefly at the local star shaped fortress which was unfortunately closed Mondays.
Now having all our domestic chores done and our accommodation phoned for tomorrow, the rest of the day is ours. So we will be on the road again tomorrow. Just 5 stages to the Camino Frances and the days are spinning past. Warm dryer weather is on its way!
Buen Camino!
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