El Camino de Santiago - 2017
Day 19: Villar de Mazarife to Villares de Órbigo
Michelle wrote:
25 Sept. Monday
 |
| Morning Selfie at Villar de Mazarife |
We began our walk at 8:00 am and had a pleasantly cool, long, straight walk for almost 10 km from Villar de Mazarife to Villavante.
The fields are now mostly corn and it was much more pleasant than the walk yesterday. We are getting closer to the hills and mountains again and everything looks better. We saw an Australian man pushing his handicapped daughter in a 3-wheeled wheelchair. We’d seen him in Leon. He is giving her a chance to experience this pilgrimage - very admirable. He is quite popular on the camino because of his selfless love for his daughter. And he is very friendly.
The town of Hospital de Orbigo was not very impressive as we came into it. When we got to an old, very long bridge our impression completely changed. The bridge was built in the 13th century over an existing Roman bridge. The river used to flood, hence the long span. Then they dammed the river to provide irrigation water for the fields. The river is now much smaller, but still beautiful. There is a big field in the former floodplain and every year in June they have a jousting re-enactment there. I’d like to see that sometime.
We ate lunch just across the river and enjoyed the walk through this side of town. We then had a short 2 km walk to Villar de Orbigo and passed a farmer harvesting his potato crop. There was a tractor that turned up the dirt and sucked/scooped up the potatoes. 3 people were in a trailer behind the tractor and they seemed to be sifting the potatoes from the dirt. It was interesting to watch for a few minutes. We also saw a tractor carrying huge peppers in the shovel part of his tractor. I’ve never seen such big peppers!
 |
| Left foot soaking in epsom salts with Tea Tree oil |
My blisters and sore tendon problem are pretty much gone now, but Curtis developed problems with his left foot. His little toe was being pushed underneath the next toe and was becoming increasingly painful. It looked like a blood blister was under the toenail. A nice Australian couple at our albergue offered some salts for Curtis to use to soak his foot in hot water and then cold water, back and forth. They also put a few drops of tea tree oil in the water. They were very kind to offer some help. I took a picture and sent it in a text to Dr. Joshua Marshall in Albuquerque and he gave us some good advice on how to get through the last 4 days of the camino. No need to run to a doctor here. It will heal. Whew!
We weren’t able to wash our clothes last night because we got to Mazarife too late, so today we had even more clothes to wash. We had to hand wash them in the courtyard but this place had a machine that spun the clothes to get most of the water out. It was very helpful and we were amazed at how much water was spun out, even though we thought we had wrung them well. I felt bad about using up so much room on the drying racks, so we hung our underclothes in between the bunks in our room (we had a “private” room with 2 bunkbeds, but we were the only ones in the room). The other clothes are outside on the rack and we found another rack that we took out to the street in the full sun and wind. They are drying very quickly now. I sat on a bench enjoying the afternoon sun.
 |
Albergue Villares de Orbigo and the bench where Michelle sat and wrote
in her journal while our clothes dried in the breeze and sun. |
It is a nice peaceful town, but it also has some life. The local men were in the bar across the street talking, drinking and playing games. That was nice to see during siesta. When siesta ended, 4:00 pm, we went to the Farmacia and the pharmacist suggested a gel type of wrap that slips over the toe and protects it. She didn’t see any sign of infection, so the salt water baths helped with that because his toe looked better than it did when we first got to the albergue. The pharmacists are like doctors here and have been very helpful to us.
We enjoyed a nice home-cooked communal dinner and enjoyed talking with the other pilgrims. We especially enjoyed talking with a Canadian couple from Ontario. They were very interesting people and conversed well on different topics.
Curtis writes: The highlight of this day's trek was the bridge at Hospital de Orbigo, and the adjacent jousting ground.
The place we stayed last night was also quite quaint and we would definitely come back to it. It was run by a lady from Belgium. There were about 22 guests there that night. Two were from Korea, 3 were from Australia, 2 from France, 3 from Ireland, 3 from Brazil, 2 from Canada, 2 from Germany and 4 of us were from the US.
Most of us participated in the communal dinner served by our Hostess from Belgium. It was a three-course meal starting with a cream of zucchini soup followed by a salad with fresh melons and tomatoes and after that there was chicken stew with potatoes and Chicken on the bone.
During dinner we sat across from the couple from Canada. He had been a banker and then changed careers to be a school principal in a small town in the province of Ontario. We found them quite interesting to talk to. While hiking, he hurt his foot and so rather than wait around two days for it to heal they rented bikes and rode the bikes through most of the meseta which is the flat section of the trail. It was interesting to learn that such a thing could be done. The bikes came with all of the equipment they would need to store their stuff while cycling.
Part of the discussion included the question of why it is so rare to see children in the streets in these little towns. We are finding that the town's are slowly being abandoned and that young families move to the city.
On a less appealing topic there have been problems developing with my little toe. I took my shoe and sock off in the courtyard of the albergue and the hostess came by and noticed it. She said: "That needs to be soaked." Then an older gentleman from Australia saw it and recommended that I soak it in hot water and then in cold water and then in hot water again and again. This Australian is a cross between Jimmy Durante and Crocodile Dundee.
So we took one of the laundry buckets and the hostess filled it full of hot water and we took another one and put cold water in it. Then the Australian brought down some salt that he poured in the water and also some tea tree oil. I soaked my foot alternatively in hot and cold. It helped soothe the ache, but it did not solve the problem, since it's a structural issue with the shape of the foot and the shoe.
Later in the afternoon, we visited the town pharmacy. We asked about Epsom salts. There was some available for us but she (the pharmacist) said if you are pilgrims you don't want to carry this. You should simply ask the albergue for some table salt. She took a close look at the toe and recommended a silicone sleeve, which we bought for a few euros.
