del Norte Day 06
Pozueta → Bilbao

Endless rain day. Camera not weather-sealed. A glaring design flaw of the Leica Q, a tool that wants to be outside. And so: mostly stowed. Yanked it out when the clouds parted. Those dry spells, short-lived. Preciousness breeds caution, where photography goes to die.

Only seven images from the day. And here is one of a "fence" having an identity crisis:

Most pilgrims seek refuge and sleep in albergues, a network of municipal and private pilgrim-only accommodations along the Camino. They contain multitudes, but are unequivocally in the spirit of pilgrimage.

Sleep must be approached strategically lest one wishes to regularly contend with a symphony of farts, burps, sighs, snores, and bed creaks from flopping pilgrims like fish on the aft deck. My move is dorky but effective. I build a room within the room: swimmer's wax ear plugs stuffed into the earn canal and a form-fitting eye mask. Lights out. Volume off. Adiós. Pulling those plugs out in the morning is like having audio controls to the universe. Let there be sound.

I was a corpse in a room animated with readying pilgrims. An Australian woman named Claire was kind enough to gently nudge me awake. We had coffee and some toast, then spent the day walking together, letting each other in to our weird, little worlds. A clean eight hours of sleep and good conversation made a day of squishy-soaked-sock hiking markedly tolerable.

What (and with who) was the last conversation you had that lit you up?

24.53km, 5:33:16
34,866 steps

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