96: Cobreces and Comillas

The day was slowly breaking behind me. I eventually came on another gas station, and I went in for a wash. I was still walking on the carretera instead of the trail. The kilometer markers on the side of the road gave me the idea that I should count how many steps I take per kilometer. Then I could calculate how many steps I took during the entire pilgrimage. I thought it would be fun to be able to tell someone, "yeah, I took 1.2 million steps on that particular hike."

But I kept losing count. The 15 minutes that it took me to walk a kilometer were a hard length of time to focus on counting steps. Because a number like "seven-hundred-and-seventeen" is hard to say in the space of time that you take one step (especially if you have to say it with every step), I abbreviated -- just kept the "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, twenty... wait. Was I at twenty already, or is this thirty?"

I came to the top of a hill and found two other pilgrims, a man and a woman. When I spoke to them, I found out that they were German. I now found the trail, but because I was hungry I decided to continue along the carretera. I was now entering Cobreces, and had learned from past experience that the trail could go on for a long stretch before there would be any opportunity to buy food.

But it turned out that even walking through Cobreces didn't bring me past any food shops. So by the time I entered Comillas over an hour later, I was feeling a little faint.

There was a beautiful rocky beach with statues of boys posed to jump into the water. Then the road took a bend inland and I began to doubt that it would really lead me into downtown Comillas. I had thought the town would lie right on the beach.

But after a bit of a walk through wooded area I came into Comillas. I found the tourist information. They were closed, but a sign said they'd be open again in five minutes. I decided to take advantage of that time to shop for some food. There was a supermarket just across the street.

My body was crying out for some sustenance. As I stood in the checkout line, I had a brief moment in which I felt that I would faint. I was getting very annoyed with the people in the lineup in front of me. When I had finally made my purchase I immediately opened the carton of orange juice I had just bought and took a good draught. I needed some sugar in my bloodstream.