Bells, storks and familiar faces

Two of the most prominent icons on the camino which we have not yet mentioned are the storks and the bells ! The storks seem to inhabit every tall belltower with up to 6 storks sharing the same tower. Sometimes you see them in the mornings in the fields hunting for worms too. The bells are part of Spanish life and go off at regular intervals. However they all seem to be computerised and pre-recorded with not a Quasimodo in sight ! Most of the campaniles also have a loudspeaker. On Sunday morning when we were walking thru Sanbanez the bells started ringing like they do during the Gloria at the Easter vigil and after 15 minutes they were overplayed by choir music which went on for an hour - until we were out of earshot ! I suppose the locals just get used to the regular noise.

Today we left Astorga and stopped for breakfast at a cafe on the edge of town. The barman was a splitting image of my brother in law Andy from Wanganui - only 10 years younger and with more hair ! It´s amazing how many people you see who remind you of people you know back home ! I guess that there are only so many facial permutations available to the creator ! The odd thing is that their personalities are often similar too !

Today we passed thru Santa Catalina which marked the 500 kms mark for us ! We celebrated with an orange juice for Kathleen and me and a Red Bull for Mads and Gab. I tried to ask the barman for a ¨"rojo torro¨" but he did not comprehend until we said Red Bull ! Gab is walking on
despite his knee and seemed to go ok today.