introduction and San Nicolas

[Kay Young]

Hi Ana

Staying at San Nicolas was one of the highlights of our camino. We have a
slideshow at http://au.f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/young_graham with photos of
San Nicolas at day 14. We arrived shortly after 3 in the afternoon after a
beautiful walk from Hornillos (another favourite refugio!)not expecting to
find beds so late in the day but as they had only just opened at 3 we were
pleasantly surprised. The refugio is in a restored 13 century chapel
without electricity (other than in a separate shower block) so in the
evening everything was lit by candlelight. Water for washing clothes comes
from a hand pump.

That day was changeover day, the last night as hospitalero for  Guiseppe
and the first night for another italian group. The foot washing ceremony
was wonderful with Guiseppe and another dressed in black capes with white
scallop shells (you can see them hanging up in the background of one of the
photos) washing and kissing one foot of each pilgrim (there were only about
5 of us). After that they cooked us a wonderful dinner of pasta and then we
had a little concert.the large italian contingent sang traditional italian
songs. We were very lucky that one of the pilgrims, Luis, was a
professional musician with the Madrid Symphony orchestra, and several
others were also very talented. Fiona from Australia sang  Sting's "Fields
of Gold" which was very appropriate after walking across the meseta,
Crystalle from France sang "La Vie en Rose and my husband Graham sang a New
Zealand Maori song. A very memorable evening!

Ohh the camino!

Kay (NZ)