Tosantos

4 abril 2010 (abril is Spanish for April)
Today I have come to a small town called Tosantos, which is darling and quite cute and only fits up to 20 pilgrims or so but will make a place for anyone who comes. I walked 26 Km or so today and there are only 8 pilgrims or so here. We will make dinner and pray together and it has been a cute place to be welcomed to. I contemplated staying one town back but really wanted to walk and am happy to be here. It will be cold and a little more solitary as very few people speak English, but I am sitting in the front yard of this little old yellow house that for its 300 years of life has served as a pilgrim’s “hospital” or albergue. There are some caves up the road a bit carved into the mountain façade. I am very happy to be staying here. I just spoke with Lola who has done the camino several times and will be working in an albergue where I pass through in June.
Today the mountains were beautiful, really just rolling hills and I am looking forward to the community dinner and climbing to the bell tower or something like that for prayer afterwards (it turned out that it was the top roof that had been turned into a chapel). The hostal I stayed in last night was quite nice, like a hotel, but I am needing a bit smaller of a community tonight. Also, we can’t get up before 7 AM! Yay! We can start having breakfast around 7:15 AM. I am really going to try and stay in other smaller albergues because they have a little more of the character of the camino… I just enjoyed some chocolate and cake; it was delicious! (That region is famous for it’s hot chocolate and it was dense and rich and hm!) So tomorrow I am just going to stop and reflect/pray and enjoy the way.