Day 9: Villamayor de Monjardín to Torres del Río
Best. Day. Ever. Temperatures in the mid 20s, strong breeze all day, fairly easy terrain. It was possible to walk without hiking poles and hold not-sweaty-hands for a bit. Heavenly. 
Many of the hay bales in Spain are rectangular, unlike the great round ones we have grown used to. As we walked past yet another mown hay field, we spied a peregina stretched atop one of the random bales in the middle of a field. Her ruck sack leaned against the bale, and she comfortably read a book. I guessed it was the John Brierley guide to the Camino. (Don’t leave home without it!) It was the ultimate pilgrim experience and photo op. We shot off a couple of pictures, only to know later that the peregrina was our Irish friend Mary, waiting for her daughter and catching up on what to expect on the road ahead. I believe she might have a new travel book in her future: Hay Bale Surfing the Camino on a Budget!
Andrew and I stopped for two hours in Los Arcos, the scene of my 2013 Sangria drunk, and met other pilgrims we’d lost touch with. Many had moved forward and then back to Pamplona for the San Fermín running of the bulls. We heard that many of the Danes had returned home because of the unbearable heat.
We left Los Arcos and enjoyed the continued weather, countryside, and the sound of our feet crunching over the gravel roads. The music and rhythm of walking becomes hypnotic. It is a spell that somewhat numbs you to the discomforts of the road, and lulls you into believing there is nothing else you’d rather be doing. Or maybe I’m nuts or suffering the after effects of heat exhaustion or delusional. 
People are happy today. The Spaniards are smiling. The pilgrims are smiling. We made it to Torres del Río, checked into a nice albergue with too many stairs and a great bar, and stayed up with the Irish over a respectable amount of beer. We talked and laughed long into the night (clearly no curfew here), then snuck into our bunk beds so as not to wake the “true” pilgrims who have the good sense to get some sensible sleep.
I have now collected sellos from bars, templar churches, and albergues. I covered every toe with bandages, reacted to the latex in my Tommie Coppers, burnt in the sun. None of this puts me any closer to knowing why I am walking 900 km to Muxia. But these friendships formed in a quick few days and the love shared amongst strangers through stories, songs, and food do help me understand the hold the Camino has on me. And these lovely people we meet along the way prove we are the same lovely people all over the world. We sound different, we cook different foods, we even look different, yet we are the same. We are one loving heart beating to the rhythms of our individual footsteps along our Life’s camino…the most important camino. 
I’m getting emotional. I so miss my lovely pilgrim family and friends at home with every step and every story shared over a glass of wine or pilgrim meal. 
Ultreia!