Route: Rabé de la Calzada – Castrojeriz
Distance: 28 km (Total: 276,5 km)

Today has been for me a celebration of the power of now. For a very long time I felt a wonderful state of cherishing the monotony of the endless march, surrounding emptiness, muddy trail, first blister on my heel, a bad-tempered biking pilgrim on the way and, what was the easiest to enjoy, delicious dinner and two bottles of wine down by Henry and me.

Biking Camino. Movie

Just as I alluded earlier today we climbed so called meseta, which is a huge plateau in the Iberian Penninsula. Its area is 400 k km2, which is actually bigger than Poland. Reaching meseta required from us to walk from 800 to 900 m a.s.l.

In the summer walking on meseta on a sunny and hot day can be quite a torture. It is a vast, open area with no forests. Today it was quite comfortable to roam except for a few long fragments of muddy trail and headwind. Undaunted by that we set quite a pace today covering 28 km in 5 hours. We had only one short break on the way as there was nothing open to eat.

4×4 on El Camin. Movie

Today we came across two peculiarities on El Camino. The first of them was a sad, older lady, whom, we caugth walking her bike. Muddy and hilly terrain today was not very conducive to cycling.

After that, near San Anton, we met an entreprenuerial man, who was selling different things from his car as well as offering to stamp our credenciales. Appreciating his attitude each of us bought something symbolic for the way.

Small businessman on El Camino. Movie

A few kilometers fruther we reached our today’s destination, lovely Castrojeriz. At a quite tidy alburgue we were greeted by a sour face of the lady biker we had seen before. Apparently she must have used some asphalt roads overtaking us along the way.

To my surprise we also found at the hostel a familiar person, the snoring guy from Cataluña, Juan. He admitted to using bus service twice to get to where we are. He excused himself with his sick condition.

After settling down at the place we ventured into the city in search for a dinner place. The one we found had a very simple Menu del dia, spaghetti as first course and a few pieces of chicken and Segundo. It is amazing how much better the food tastes after a long toil. Since we were thirsty we ordered a bottle of red wine, which was soon to be succeeded by another one, this time of Rose kind to go well with our dessert. You live only once!

I guess great eating will be one of the great features of our life in heaven.

Medytacja X. What really counts is Now, and in it Love (Charity).

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love

1 J 4, 8

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel

Col 1, 3-5

Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world
PS 46, 10

I recall once going over the Letter to the Collosians in my bible study group in my home town. Going over the second fragment I quoted above we tried to understand the unusual sequence of the three Cardinal Virtues, which Faith, Love (Charity) and Hope in that fragment. Usually Love comes last in the order.

The interpretation that I found very appealing was that Faith refers to the things that happened in the past, Love is to be experienced and given at present, and Hope is for the future.

Since we cannot change the past and can’t really influence the future now, all that counts is Now, and Love in it.

Love can only be experienced here and now.