Erica

It is amazing how many people you meet on the camino and with one thing in common, we are all pilgrims. We are walking, no matter how long we walk or even if we are not going to Santiago in this trip (many pilgrims walk it in bits), this doesn´t matter, it´s the time you spend with them. This is what binds you together.

We met along the way the hilarious Erica from California. I mentioned her in my post Zariquiegui to Cirauqui but I felt the need to talk about her further. She is an environmetal engineer and I learnt some really cool stuff from her. We started talking about the subject of wind-turbines because in Spain they are every where. She explained she worked on a wind-turbine project in the North Sea. It is a popular place to put wind-turbines beacuse it is only 20m deep! They dig down 50m into the earth to anchor them there. There you go Mr Stokes, that ones for you!

Erica has a postitive view of everything about life and she was heaps of fun to walk with. She made the camino kilometres disappear and kept me laughing all the way.  I was having a bad day and Erica seemed to turn every little winge of mine into something positive and it made me think how negative I can be sometimes.

Erica bought her own style to the camino. She wears this huge red sombrero which you can spot a mile way and know it´s her coming over the hill. Her backpack is enormous, it is like a Mary Poppin´s bag, you never know what´s coming out next!

One night we spoilt our selves and had a break from the communal dormitaries and got a private room in a hotel, so I could finally have a private bathroom. Oh it was so nice but there was one thing wrong, it was only mum and I in one room and no other interesting pilgrims to talk to and find out their story. I don´t mean that mum´s company in not fun, we do always seem to crack up over something but it´s more interesting in a hostel because you meet people from all over the world. People have such interesting stories and they are all different in their own ways. This was when I missed Erica and I realised that it´s the people you meet on your journey that really make it special. I couldn´t believe I´m actually saying this but the next night I wanted to stay with my fellow befriended pilrims in a refugio.

Here is Erica bobbing infront of a stone shephard´s hut, with her huge pack but sin sombrero!