Things are lookin' up!

So, I last wrote from Alcuéscar where we were hanging out at the monastery. I say "we" because for the first night on this trip there was actually more than just a couple of people. We had been told that there was an evening mass at 7 p.m. where the priest would say a blessing for those walking to Sanitiago followed by dinner at 7:30. So, at around 7, a group of us gathered and I asked the caretaker where the mass was. He pointed at the other building and said it was there and to go on in. So, we go in and walking though what appears to be some sort of hospital ward with people in wheelchairs, people milling up and down the halls, a couple of nurses, some oxygen masks etc. The Germans looked at me as if I clearly had misunderstood the caretaker and had entered the wrong building. We later learned that the priests here run a facility for physically and mentally challenged older men. They are very poor people who have nobody else to look after them. At this point, however, we were still a bit mystified but continued down the corridor until we found the chapel. The mass was just starting and there were about 10 of the patients/residents at the mass and then us. Afterwards, the patients returned to their rooms and the priest called us up to talk. He was a very friendly and very funny guy. I had met him earlier in the day. He is 78 and was a real pistol. I regret that he did not join us for dinner as he would have had us in stitches. The dinner was fun and was attended by Anna and Katerina (the mother and daughter Germans who are actually Polish) (oh, and Brian, they are dressed from head to toe entirely in Jack Wolfskin products), a Danish man, Daniel (the young German who does not speak English which is a bit odd for a German but aforementioned German Poles found this fact astounding) a Catalan couple, me and there were also two Spanish men. It was fun to finally be around people. My feet were really bothering me and the next day I did the very short walk to Aldea del Cano. The walk was nice except the one or two mile stretch that featured thousands of caterpillars on the ground. I'm not keen on caterpillars and there were so many of them that it creeped me out a bit. But as I have learned from the English, I kept calm and carried on. Because the walk was so short, I got to the albergue just before noon where I found the two Spanish men who had already arrived and was joined shortly after by Anna and Katerina and Daniel. Anna and Katerina have been great and that afteroon Anna cooked lunch for us and then we went to the cafe together. Before lunch, one of the Spanish men (whose names I should learn) insisted that I go next door to the "Hogar de Mayores" (ostensibly an activity center for the town's elderly but really just a bar which did not appear to be frequented by the elderly) to try the local tapa, "pig tail on toast". It was really good. It was a really good piece of bread, grilled and topped with a fried quail egg, grilled onions, some brown sauce and three pieces of roasted pig tail. It was really tasty. Oh, and the kicker was that the tapa and the glass of wine came to a total of about 65 cents U.S. I love Spain. Later in the afternoon a Spanish girl arrived bringing greetings from Marcello who was my only friend during the first 3 days of my walk. He is a day behind me and sends greetings along with faster walkers. I hope he catches up with us too. So, yesterday, on that very short leg of a walk, my blisters didn't bother me too much and had not gotten any worse which was great news indeed.
This morning I set out with Anna and Katerina and we stopped first at the gas station cafe for breakfast and again for a drink in another town a couple of hours later. We stayed together until Caceres where they will stay for the night as Anna's other daughter, Monica is joining them there. I was feeling great and decided to power on to Casar de Caceres a few miles on down the road. Today was the first day that I walked a long day (about 21 miles) that I felt good. I can feel my blisters but they don't hurt. My legs didn't feel so tired. I didn't feel so tired. I felt like I did on any given day on my previous walks. This is good because the next week is full of very long (all about 20+ miles) stages without a lot of towns in between. So, I hope I continue to feel as good as today (after 12 days of walking) is the first day that I have felt that I can really do this thing.
I'm staying at the albergue with Daniel, the two Spanish men, and the Spanish girl whose name is something like "Yema" which can't really be right as that means "egg yolk" in Spanish.
I would like to have stayed in Caceres as I love that city and it is so pretty and the old part is amazing but alas, I had to move on as the way the stages are from this point on it would have meant that I would have lost a full day. But, Brian, we will go there on our big Spanish tour next year.
Sorry I'm unable to post pictures...I also have a video that I took when I was stuck in the midst of some sort of sheep herding operation. I decided to just stand still and let the hundreds of sheep go around me. I didn't want to earn the ire of the sheepdog by getting in his way, or the shepherd who actually had one of those Little Bo Peep style shepherding sticks with a hook at the top.
Oh, and the weather remains incredible. It was cooler the last few days...probably in the 60s but today got rather warm again. But is is so sunny and there's usually a nice breeze and it is cool at night. There has not been a drop of rain and rarely a cloud in the sky. This morning at the cafe the news was on the tv and they showed the weather. The map of Spain had about 30 little cartoon suns scattered about showing the forecast which is, evidently, in the whole of Spain, sunny for the next several days.