After writing somewhere that Sarria has one of the nicest approaches into a city of all the cities on the Camino, I wake up to traffic. People, cars. We don't have to leave until 8:30, and I don't. I wake up at 7 and can hear people passing under the balcony. I look out: parades of joyous peregrinos. I hit the school traffic as I turn the corner past the monastery: a traffic jam of peregrinos and cars, hard to get through, get out of the way. An older woman jumps out of the road as soon as there is a dirt path, trips over a root, and starts to roll down the hill, finally stopping herself in a patch of vegetation. I see several people fall today, allowing people to help them back up, but embarrassed to ask for more, soldiering on; I probably would've cried. I offer a bandaid for a particularly scraped up knee, but the woman declines.
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| Cross the bridge and lose the traffic, April 23/L Herlevi 2017 |
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| The Tree!, April 23/L Herlevi 2017 |
So many changes. Eat at usual restaurant. This is the first time I didn't do this section in the rain. So everyone outside, all but me. Waitress seems glad I'm sitting inside, says it's easier for her, they are working their butts off. Cyclist sees me sitting there and walks over to ask me what I meant last night...I guess I got up and left during the middle of a conversation, I wasn't being rude, just tired. Had to do with how I felt about this journey coming to an end in a few days. The flight attendant walks over and tells me why she is walking, and since she could only get a little time off of work, hopes the time and distance are enough (to find something, the elusive answers we are all looking for on some level.) The cyclist stops beside me right before the bridge to Portomarin, asks me how I am doing. After I walk to the bridge, I don't see either of them again. I like both of them, and they are both alone, like me: solitary journeys in a crowd.
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| The restaurant, April 23/L Herlevi 2017 |
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| Help me!, April 23/L Herlevi 2017 |
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| A lot of water even without the rain, April 23/L Herlevi 2017 |
Lot more albergues. Old 100 km marker is gone. Swarm of bees.
I have a somewhat unexpected panic attack on the bridge. I can hear people behind me, but I'm trying to stare straight ahead and to remember to breathe. I walk the road into the center rather than the stairs. City is crowded. Church open, went to mass again. Church reminds me of the one in Torres del Rio, the simplicity. I can't believe they moved the whole thing and put it back together.
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| Mural on the road rte, April 23/L Herlevi 2017 |
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| Iglesia, April 23/L Herlevi 2017 |
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| Iglesia Doorway, April 23/L Herlevi 2017 |
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| Iglesia, April 23/L Herlevi 2017 |
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| Iglesia, April 23/L Herlevi 2017 |
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