Sunshine on the Meseta

I am now at Castrojeriz and this makes me 460 kms from Santiago.  I am almost halfway there.  The last three days have been brilliant sunshine and perfect days for walking.  The landscape changes daily and I go from wooded areas and then by rocky paths through wide open spaces and yesterday entered the Meseta, a flatter, unshaded landscape with little piles of stone and low stone walls.  Left behind are the glorious mauve gorse bushes of three days ago, the vineyards and the wheatfields.  Still I pass through the villages dominated by their huge stone churches and with the smell of woodsmoke wafting through the air.  I find it sad that so many of these magnificent churches are closed up and it's rare to see inside their marvellous interiors.  Today and yesterday were spent in Albergues in these places where cobbled streets pass by stone houses adorned with scallop shells but few people do I see.  The ferocious dogs I have read about have not yet materialised and so far they are a sleepy, rather unkempt lot that lolled in the streets as I pass. 

I have fared quite well so far and even my pack seems to be less of a distraction.  I tend less to think of myself as the "World's Worst Pilgrim" and compare myself less to the others I see on the road.  I have come to see that as I bring the best of myself to the day, the day unfolds much better.  To be mindful and to be present bring forth a better outcome.

Physically I have had a bit of sunburn, a couple of coldsores and a couple of blisters, there are no complaints here, I pay attention and then let them go.  It is funny to see how we rock and limp and yet keep going.  This world of contrasts which is so very different than the conventions we usually adhere to, it is nothing to see a pilgrim rubbing his sore bare feet at an outdoor cafe or clipping his toenails on the stone steps of a church where storks nest in the towers.  Middle-aged pilgrims sit in their underwear on bunkbeds in the Refugios.  This is normal life on the Camino.