Three snapshots of people at the dinner table last night:

Desiree. I first met her in the afternoon on the grounds of our resort-like albergue when she saw me looking for a place to hang my wet clothes and told me where the lines were. She's a Montreal native who's lived in Tucson, AZ for the past 25 years. Willowy with long grey hair, wearing a flowing hippieish skirt and dancing shoes. I took her to be in her late 60s, and she was in bad shape, literally inching herself along with the aid of two walking sticks. Her knees had given out during the descent into El Acebo and her Camino was over, at least the walking part. I said how sorry I was and she said she was actually doing much better; after she arrived she couldn't walk at all, now at least she could move. She'd been in the albergue for three days and was planning to stay several more before taking a bus to Santiago and Finisterre. She was a classic new-agey type, warm, loving, and a bit holier-than-thou. At dinner several of us had been to India and I mentioned of the places I'd been India was the most difficult for me because people can be so in your face. She said something about using her body's force field, sending out energy, and people would leave her be. She also said something about going to small villages and interacting with indigenous people. I asked how she communicated, did she have the language, and she said no she communicated with her body and its energy. Despite my built in skepticism and her vagueness--when I asked what she had done for a living she said oh lots of things--for some reason I couldn't help but like her. When she saw me leaving this morning she came over and we hugged goodbye.

Dirk. A 40-something guy from Düsseldorf with a sense of humor and a need for rules. He's had a rough time with his feet and it hasn't let up. In fact he was staying for a few days to let himself heal as well. Without my mentioning the attitude I described the other day, he launched into a routine: "I just don't understand these people whose feet don't hurt. They say oh I only did 40 km today so I'll have to do 60 km tomorrow. Don't they realize we don't want to hear that?" We all cracked up. But he had this rigid sense of rules. When I said I'm interested in taking photographs, he said oh that's not the real Camino. And when I said I took the road instead of the path part of the way yesterday he said that's not the real Camino either. Ok, I didn't argue.

Dave. I first saw him in the afternoon as well, and, wearing only a pair of shorts, he made quite a visual impression. He was covered in tattoos, as well as scars. Not the Japanese style total body tattoo that's an overall design with all parts working together. His was more like 50 different tattoos taking up most of the space on his body, sort of like a punk graffiti billboard. At dinner he was wearing a t-shirt about walking the Camino for Nepal. Turned out he had been in Nepal during the earthquake, had seen destruction and death, and was now walking for a charity organization that gets people to pledge money for walkers. He grew up in a rural town outside Edmonton, Alberta, and now is constantly traveling. I figured he was my age, or maybe older, but he turned out to be 52 with three grandchildren, one 16 years old. Different world. He talked about skydiving, about having done the Camino before on crutches, about his mother dying, about his own severe injuries, about wanting to walk across Mongolia and Tibet into Nepal, and about how you have to do extreme things because life is short. I was intrigued and couldn't quite figure it all out. Being the ever ready contrarian I brought up the poem I wrote about a while back, the one that posits that if you look closely enough at a stone fence you'd see the universe. He said if he sat around looking at walls he'd go crazy. Desiree of course said something about, oh yes, some yogis say you should do the same pose for several hours a day.

I saw him again at breakfast, and alone with him I wondered how he can afford all his adventures, did he happen to own some land sitting on an oil deposit or something? The answer was shocking and sad. He gets a small disability pension because he had worked with horses and one day one of his charges reared and kicked him, smashing his pelvis and leg, and now he has pins and screws all through his body. He had lived in a small apartment with his mother, subsidized by the province for seniors. Then his mother died and since he wasn't old enough to qualify for the apartment himself they kicked him out the day of the funeral. So he's homeless. He visits his daughters for a while, his brother from whom he had been estranged just invited him to stay for a while, but otherwise he just keeps traveling on the cheap. Amazing what stories there are out there.

Today's walk from El Acebo to Ponferrada was superb. The first 7 miles were through the mountains, and despite Dirk's proclamation I walked on the winding narrow two-lane road instead of the path, even though it was longer. It felt like an American national park. The views were again magnificent, with precipitous drops, and I could hear the sound of rushing water hundreds of feet below. Then coming out of the mountains I crossed a medieval stone bridge into the town of Molinaseca, with shops lining the main, narrow cobblestone street running through it. Exiting the town was a bit more mundane, with a long gradual climb through a suburban stretch, through some dusty fields and then through the town of Campo before reaching the outskirts of Ponferrada. At first glance it looks like a prosperous metropolis with huge apartment blocks and some heavy industry. But what a surprise when you arrive in the old city. Beautiful, with a giant castle, imposing churches, and some beautiful plazas. I'm staying in the middle of the old city and once I do some serious relaxing I'm going to try to get up the energy to explore.