Day 11: Azofra to Granon. 22.1 km

Great start, amazing finish, and mostly good in between.

Cooked breakfast in the community kitchen in Azofra: big chorizo and cheese omelette, part for breakfast and the rest stuffed into some bread for lunch. Got on the Way at 730, relatively late. Walked through a patchwork of harvested fields and vinyards. Sun rose behind us, lighting up the hay stubble like gold.

Through two towns today. The first, Ciruena, was dead as a doornail. The part we walked through was clearly a summer golf destination. Closed up tight now.

The second, Santo Domingo de la Calazada, was larger. It is Sunday today, so it too was mostly closed. The city is known for the miracle of the hanged innocent, in which a medieval German pilgrim falsely accused of theft was hanged, but stayed alive in the gallows until his parents discovered him upon their return pilgrimage from Santiago. The local priest, refusing to belive that their son had been hanging in the gallows for weeks, alive, said that their son was no more alive than the chickens he was roasting, whereupon the chickens came to life and flew away. Since then, descendants of the chickens have been kept in a coop in the church.

We wanted to go inside the Cathedral and see the sacred chickens, but it cost 5 Euro and nobody wanted to walk through the museum. Feet. Hurt. A. Lot.

Settled for cafe con leche next door, then started up for last 7 km to Granon. It appeared none too early... I have developed some serious pain across the outside of my left foot and up my leg. Not terribly suprising, considering the injuries I've had there historically.

Our albuerge is amazing. It's a donativo, meaning its owned by a religious order and contributions are voluntary. We have 20 mattresses on the floor of the church tower.

Boots in the tower.

Door to the albuerge

It was agony getting up these last steps!

Once in our room, I conked on my mattress and plugged my leg into my tens unit. Thanks, Jennifer Ernst! And it was so fortunate... a lovely Swedish woman named Tina gave me a leg massage that helped as well. I fear I'm heading into a bit of an emotional meltdown. Not unusual on the Camino this far in, but not a lot of fun. I am worrying about my left leg, and am just generally emotional. Marise has agreed to a short day tomorrow -15km- so maybe it'll be ok.

Communal dinner cooking began at 6, with dinner presumably beginning at 8. There are folks playing guitars an tambourines, and I hear laughter in many languages.

Dinner

Assembly line dishes

After dinner we had group reflection in the choir of this church. Deeply moving.