Day 26 – El Gonso

In 1952, the same year my wife Kathy was born,  Gerardo Fernandez and his wife D’ Luisa designed, financed and inaugurated this town’s water well.

Last nights dinner was a gourmet meal prepared by our Netherlandian host Christina who runs the only alburgue in Villar de Orbigo.
Today, on other hand, dinner is a dry piece of bread with something like dried beef in the middle and a couple of glasses of vino tinto.   (Albeit, mostly due to my failing language skills.)  I shared my table with the aubergue’s only other guest, a meteorologist from Marsala Spain. 

This towns name is “El Gonso” and the main entertainment is a place called “the Cowboy Bar” so how bad can that be?  El Gonso is one of the last few stops before the climb up to the Cruz de Ferro, the “Iron Cross”, an essential stop on the Camino.


On the way here today I crossed a footbridge over some railroad tracks and looked down to see an older  man and his wife working in their garden.  He was using a hand hoe and she was wearing a housecoat. This image struck me as a throwback to the middle of the last century in midwest America.  It could have been painted by Edward Hopper.  

More tomorrow. 

Buen Camino,

-jgp