Entourage

Bright and early (well early at least) my aunt Tiny* and I set off this morning together for my first, her fourth stage of the Camino.

After dropping off our bags, and buying some lunch, we stopped to take a selfie together next to our first Camino sign. A lovely Korean woman offered to take our picture, but with an ulterior motive; she wanted to know how old Tiny was. Once she found out Tiny turned 80 this year, the same as her mother, our lovely Korean woman stayed and chatted with us for about a Kilometre, took lots of pictures to send back to her mother as encouragement to come with her next time, until zooming off at her natural speed.

After our experience with Tiny two days before where she seemed to know everyone walking, I realised my role for the next two weeks is entourage and general assistant to the rock star I am walking with. This was confirmed when we got up to the top of today’s very tough hill to find one of Tiny’s fans from yesterday keen to have a photo with her.

It was quite a tough day, 24km including that big uphill. The whole day, though, was the classic Camino experience, with beautiful rolling wheat fields in the distance and lovely cute villages with ancient stone churches every few kilometres.

* Tiny’s real name is Helen, but she was named Tiny by my mother when she was a baby and it has stuck.