Stories from Carrion II

(To Andrea and Brandon)
"I just had a message from your Mother. Both she and the Schuberts had good trips and are now safely at their hotel in Madrid. So I will see them at about 09:30 tomorrow morning at the train station.

Dad"

Now back to Stories from Carrion II

"So I do not see the man or the horse again that day. And I set off to explore the town. It is about 14:30 at this point and I know that not much will be open. The siesta is still a much honoured custom in rural Spain and to some extent in the cities as well. And not much of anything is open from 2 to 5 in the afternoon. I want to find these places but I know I will have to come back later to actually do anything. First I find a Farmacia, then I find a Supermercado. Now a Supermercado in Spain is not at all like the Superstore in Milton. About 4 Supermercados could fit easily into the entranceway of the Superstore in Milton. We are truly blessed with an abundance of choice in Milton. A supermercado here is a small, usually family run grocery store of the kind that was common in Canada in the 50’s. Anyway, I found it and across the street was the internet cafe and I found where the bank machines and the restaurantes were on the way back to the monastery. Also I found a camera shop as I needed new batteries for my prodigal camera (the one that was lost and then found in Logroño).

So I went back to my compact cell at the monastery, had a shower, changed into my non walking clothes (I have basically 2 sets of clothing, the one set that I walk in and the other set for when I am not walking. And I rest. Rest is important because your feet and legs need rest even if you don’t feel tired or sleepy.

Around 6 pm, I go out and do my errands; first to the Farmacia, then to the Supermercado. The Spanish diet is high on meat and bread and low on fruits and vegetables, and even though I do not eat a lot of fresh fruit at home I have begun to crave fresh fruit. Well there was not much fruit to be had at the Supermercado that day but I had an orange and I got a few other things. Then I went to the Internet cafe to do my messages and to a restaurante for a bit of supper and to the photoshop for camera batteries.

And then back to the monastery for the night. In the morning I am up at 06:30, carefully packed for the day and my feet carefully prepared for the day with all the sensitive areas bandaged and I am on my way out the gate by 08:15. I stop for a quick breakfast and then to the bank machine to top up my cash. Now I am working my way out of Carrion when I see standing quietly in front of a small hotel, the horse. I continue on my way and I am just passing another Monasterio, the Monasterio of San Zoillo (to which I will return in Stories from Carrion III) and crossing a bridge over the Rio Carrion when I again hear the clip-clopping of the horse and the Peregrino a caballo walks past me again this time leading the horse out of town.

I never actually saw him ride the horse but I presume he must have, and further down the road I find clear evidence of the horse’s passing. I am a veterinarian after all and I can recognize the size, shape, colour and characteristic odour of fresh horse manure. Sometime the political kind of horse manure gets by me but I know the real stuff when I see it. In the course of my professional career I have had to dissect and examine the gastrointestinal tract of quite a few horses. So I not only know what horse manure looks like but why it looks that way and how it is made. The gastrointestinal tract of a horse is a wonderfully complex evolutionary structure. Ruminants (cattle, sheep, deer, bison etc) have a very large dilatation of the esophagus called the rumen which is a large fermentation vat for the plant materials which they eat. Bacteria and protozoa break down the indigestible cellulose into digestible materials. Horses are monogastric animals and do not have a rumen so they have to do the same job a different way. So they have developed a very large and complex folded great colon where the breakdown of cellulose occurs.

But that is probably more detail about equine gastroenterology than most people want to know.

The bottom line here is that not many people travel the Way these days on horseback but in my journey at least one peregrino is doing so.

Len"