To Finish My Salamanca Story ...

It didn't rain at all today so I have a new complaint. My boots are falling apart. Every time I puts them on I can hear the insides ripping apart. I'm getting brand new blisters and have to look for a place to buy new ones.

It doesn't help that yesterday and today were the two longest so far (38km+ yesterday and 39km+ today). It's been very flat which is a foot killer in itself.

Leaving Salamanca was a letdown.  Not only was our night with Feli so good but our little walking group has broken up. Luckily I had one of those 'this can't be a coincidence' Camino moments on Feli night. Most of the people I had gotten to know we're busy making plans to leave early the next morning and we're staying near Plaza Mayor so we planned on meeting at a bar in Plaza Mayor at 9. Feli lives and works about two km from there and we she had suggested we meet in her neighborhood at 8:45 so our group plans didn't sync up for a last-night evening of dining and drinking. I didn't know what Feli wanted to do so rather than try to get my gang coordinated in a strange distant neighborhood we figured we'd try to just grab a nightcap by Plaza Mayor at the end of the night.

So I met Feli at the entrance to El Corte Ingles and we went to some random bar for a beer. Trip Advisor lists 468 restaurants in Salamanca so there must be close to a thousand bars in that city and we were a couple of kilometers from the comfort zone of Plaza Mayor. Feli and I were sitting at a ttable with me facing the door and out of nowhere Silvia and Nicholas appear, with Nicholas looking kind of upset and Silvia trying to calm him down.  They had no idea this was even the neighborhood I was going to be in but went there because they couldn't find an Internet cafe for Nicholas to confirm his flight home, print his boarding pass etc. Every local person they asked pointed them further and further into the newer part of town. I really couldn't believe my eyes. Some higher power delivered them to our random bar!  So Silvia called Charlie, who was waiting in Plaza Mayor and a half hour later we were all together in Feli's neighborhood. She took us around for a classic tapas-hopping tour of some of the most outstanding local eats. FAR better than we could ever have come up with on our own. It was really one of those magical events that seems to happen fairly regularly on Caminos.



Silvia, Feli and Nicolas on the left.  All of us on the right (at the far right is Feli's boyfriend Julian.  A very nice guy!