Ups and downs, but mostly ups

Today’s hike involved a 600 meter rise in elevation from Astorga to Foncebadon. We’ll go up another 100 meters to Cruz de Ferro in the morning, then hike downhill the rest of the day to Ponferreda. I expect it to be a tiring day. Cruz de Ferro is the highest point on the Camino Frances.

So, yeah. A knight and his freakin’ bird. 

I’m terrified of birds. Ever since I opened the door to the attic in my mom and dad’s house and had a starling swoop down and attack me, I’ve hated the creatures. Yes, I know they probably do good things sometimes. Just don’t make me be in the same space with them.

So I’m minding my own business today, and I come around the corner and there’s a knight hanging out with his freakin’ hawk and people are lining up to hold the thing and have their photo taken with it.  

Shudder. 

Somehow, it made the rocky path upward just beyond this guy look really, really appealing. 

* * * 

The Camino offers some interesting opportunities for character studies. We see some of the same people again and again, and it’s surprising how consistent their behaviors are from one day to the next.

Some folks are generous to a fault, stepping aside to let faster hikers pass them, listening with interest to perfect strangers’ stories, buying drinks for the table.

Others are mostly interested in taking care of themselves. If a fellow pilgrim is moving faster, he or she had better be willing to take his or her chances on the rocks or overgrown hedges beside the path, because this pilgrim yields to no one. If the wait staff miscalculated the change and returns too much, well, it’s a windfall; but if the wait staff miscalculated the change and doesn’t return enough, it’s a ripoff to end all ripoffs.

Of course, we see this every day among the people we know in Kansas City, but somehow it seems to be magnified here.

And it’s a good lesson, I think, in examining my own motives and actions to make sure I’m not falling into a group that I’d prefer not to be part of.