Chaucer begins "The Canterbury Tales" with a treacly description of springtime in the English countryside. The gentle warm breezes playing over the freshly-plowed fields and gamboling newborn farm animals entice pilgrims -- eager for the novelty of a journey -- to travel. This is the frame story around a wide variety of fart jokes, satirizing of authority figures, creative cuckolding, and perhaps the most vivid description of acne ever penned.
It's only Day 6 of the Camino de Santiago (Frances route) for me, so there's plenty of time to meet colorful characters. Unlike Chaucer's band of pilgrims, most of us are traveling alone, and may keep company for a few days but likely will drift and flow according to different paces and rest days. There's plenty of camaraderie and conversation if that's what you seek. One can also maintain a retiring demeanor, abjure the made-for-Instagram photo ops, and find less popular rocks behind which to pee.
Because I like structure, I'm honing my own version of liturgical hours. As it still gets pretty hot, like 80F in the afternoon, I start walking early (6:30am) in the cool dark. This is one of my favorite times of day, as it's been clear and there are moon shadows. The sky lightens, blending oranges and pinks and dissolving them into day. At 9:30am, I have First Lunch (apple + cheese + nuts). The back of my shirt is sweat-soaked but it's cool enough yet to trade out for a sweater while sitting still. I walk until sometime in the early afternoon, then stumble gratefully into the oasis of a hostel. After casting off the burden of my backpack, I perform my ablutions/emerge from the shower, and change into my Evening Wear (aka the clean set of clothes).
At some point I consume Second Lunch, often also Afternoon Chocolate. I nap, write notes, read the news, look at where I'm going tomorrow, and eventually go get tapas or perhaps a jar of fancy tuna in olive oil. This is also the time of Evening Cucumber, my guaranteed daily vegetable intake. Maybe I stop to look at the massive gold-painted wood carvings inside a church; maybe I chat with an old British man about our respective careers. By 9pm it's time to pass out listening to a podcast about infrastructure design, or Hercules, or debt restructuring, which helps block out the snoring from the bunk above.
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