Camino Entry 30

Entry 30, December 24^th, 2011

Shopping List:

8 baguettes

Garlic

Mayo

Oregano

Parmesan Cheese

White sugar

Brown sugar

Eggs

Flour

Butter

Vanilla

Baking Powder (polva de horniar)

Salt

Chocolate Chips

2 bottles of wine

4 kg pasta

1 kg shrimp

1 L oil

Nata de Leche

1 Bottle KAS Limon (for Ernesto)

Our group is spending Christmas Eve in Belorado.  Belorado is a big pilgrim town; there is an impression of Martin Sheen’s feet here in cement from when he visited while filming the movie.  I reached the town first and left a message in stones for the others while I went to look for albergues – there was only one open.

Wan Woo and I went grocery shopping for Christmas dinner.  I volunteered to make garlic bread and cookies, while the Master made seafood pasta.  On our way back from the store, we ran into another pilgrim who was traveling on her own and brought her back with us to the albergue for dinner.

The cookies proved to be a challenge.  The only store was open for only a few hours and had a limited selection – in particular, it had no baking powder, brown sugar, vanilla extract, or chocolate chips.  We were able to find some dried vanilla, which we cut up and ground into powder, and a few smashed chocolate bars were more than sufficient to replace the chocolate chips, but when it came to baking powder and brown sugar I was stumped.  Finally I just went ahead and made them with doubled white sugar and no powder, and they turned out fairly well.  Not my best batch ever, but considering the ingredients and the number of kilometers we walked today I was happy with them.  So were the others.

Dinner was delicious, and noisy.  The new pilgrim is German, so we’ve added another language to the table.  What a strange Christmas I’m having!

Expenses, Day 30

Albergue: 6.00

Dinner: 6.00

Provisions: 5.00

Total:  17.00

Trip Total: 685.83