Hospital de Orbiga to San Justo de la Vega (and book review)

Today we got off at the relatively early hour of 10:00 headed to Astorga, but had to get to the post office to mail home excess weight before hiking. However the Post Office is only open from 1 to 2 PM, due to spending cutbacks I suspect. Since we did not want to carry the stuff all the way to Astorga, we came across  a perrigrino (pilgram) van which driver agreed to take it to Astorga, from where we plan to ship it tomorrow. He's supposed to drop it at the main albergue. We will see...

Our hike today stopped a little shy of Astorga and we got room at Hostle Juli in San Justo de la Vega, which has a bar and dinning room. The Camino went almost entirely on dirt farm roads made dusty by the dry conditions and a great number of hikers. We have seen more hikers this time than last by many multiples.

I have been listening to audio books on an iPod during the parts of the trail where I'm tired or where it is less interesting, and today I finished "Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail", an account of a backpack along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) by Cherl Strayed. The author spends too much time engaged in introspection of her relationship with her dead mother for this book to have real appeal to the reader expecting an outdoor adventure tale.

Thankful "Wild" was over I started "God is not Great" by Christopher Hitchins, the aethist who argues eloquently and persuasively against organized religion, which was ironically the motivation for the pilgrims who began the first pilgrimages for which the El Camino we are now hiking was developed (although that was not our motivation.) It can be argued that religion does some good works since it established the trail we are enjoying now. But Hitchins would probably point out that may be a little like saying the house fire did some good because we no longer have roaches. And of course many arguably much nicer trails have been built without religious motivation. Like with art, religion can be a strong motivator, although an indirect one, since I seem to recall most great religious art was done by artists well paid by the church which sometimes extorted the money from frightened parishioners. And their motivations were in large part propaganda. Anyway, I won't go further along this line now since it has little to do with our El Camino trip.

Note two of the photos today feature the Roman torture machine, the cross. Also, a new blaze, an arrow made of stones. Finally, a photo of the albergue across the street, which was our alternative abode.