Of our adventurers´ first sally forth and disappearing windmills

When we were hiking up our first mountain outside of Pamplona, it began to thunderstorm. I asked Luke if I should ditch my metal hiking pole because of the lightning, but he reassured me that it would be fine. Then, he said:

"We should probably walk with some distance between us, though. That way, if it strikes one of us, the other one can come help. Oh, and keep doing CPR... the heart can stop up to 3 times."

Awesome. Also, I didn´t know CPR. An hour earlier, the skies had been clear over Pamplona behind us. As we got closer to the mountain and its windmill spine, though, the clouds rolled in. I dug my pole as far into the mud as I could and kept telling myself there were a lot of things on the mountain... why would the lightning pick me?

Things had been going super well up to that point. In Pamplona, we´d found our Pilgrim Passport, lodging, and the trail thanks to some friendly French women and a stout German guy with a briefcase. The night before we ate Paella, saw a Basque protest, and danced in the street with a tamer Basque contingent. Nuns gave me delicious coffee for breakfast...

Just as I was making peace with death, a jolly Spanish man carrying an umbrella (!) came up beside me. He said he was on his way to meet friends for wine in the next town. He said we were close. He said there were lightning rods at the top of the mountain. Ahhhh.

After it cleared up some, we looked back and saw that we had passed the windmills at the top of the mountain without seeing them. We had been hiking on a mountain amongst windmills in a thunderstorm and hadn´t even reazlied it. Rock.

One of my favorite parts of the trail so far has been that it eliminates so much of the burden of hiking. As soon as we were drenched and cold, we came upon the next town where we had coffee and bocadillos. There are fountains all along the way, so you don´t have to carry a ton of water. AND you get to sleep in a bed (surrounded by old people who sometimes snore and walk around in their underwear) but it´s a bed! All of this probably contributes to the fact that the average age of the camino hiker is about 55.

We have, however, been able to find some kids our age to hang out with. There are two Dutch gals who are at the tail end of their gap year, have super cute accents, and are learning to play frisbee... "What is a flick the wrist and how do you do it?" There´s Juan Pablo, our Mexican translator, who recently wooed a priest and convinced him to let Luke ring the bell of a medieval church. We also have a German in the group who cracks corny jokes and has uncanny knowledge of American movies. ´tis good times.

Oh, Frei and Amal, I also thought you´d be interested to know that I am still always the last one ready...

Tomorrow: the WINE FOUNTAIN!