Today we woke up, punctual as ever, at 3 in the morning, after having had the luck of sleeping 8 hours. We started walking in the dark, lit by a beautiful moon, round and yellow like a Pringle, as we crossed the fields of the land of one of the best Catalan rices, if not the best. The problem with rice fields: they are completely flooded. And stagnant water means mosquitoes.
We were eaten alive by a plague of these insects, so much so that it seemed like one of the plagues of Egypt. Miquel’s and Miguel del Pozo’s necks ended up looking like a Pollock. In fact, Jaume Morer, who was so focused on defending himself from the mosquitoes, slapping himself hard enough to kill a buffalo, put his whole left boot into a puddle up to the ankle. Straight away he said: “Blisters”. Sure enough, at the end of the stage his gift of prophecy was confirmed.
Once we’d left the rice fields behind, a kind of frenzied adrenaline took hold of the group of pilgrims and we moved at a pace that seasoned soldiers would envy. At one point we were doing six and a half kilometres an hour. And not sweating, but singing, laughing and shouting as day broke, with Nuri Ramió’s cheerful rallying cries leading the way.
When we reached the breakfast stop, Luis had a lovely surprise ready for us: dozens of croissants of exaggerated proportions. Mamen, thank you so much for giving us this little (or not so little) joy in the middle of our pilgrimage. We commend you to God with every step!
The last hours of walking were easy and we arrived early, so early that we were able to go to the beach before lunch. Mind you, we found quite a lot of marine flora there and, rather than sea with seaweed, it was seaweed with sea. That fed Pau Sarsanedas’s creativity, and he couldn’t resist putting some on as a moustache.
After lunch, Jose (a very cheerful man with even more charm) opened the sports centre where we’ll spend the night for us, and we went to the beautiful church of Vinaròs, where we had the usual attacking trident (adoration, meditation and Mass). Lots of families from the town came to the Eucharist, the parish priest, Don Emilio, preached a great homily for us, and we had the luck of bumping into the Torrelles family and Lucía Garcés, who then came to have dinner with us.
But that wasn’t all, because as we came out of the church an impromptu invitation was waiting for us to go and have ice creams with the Little Sisters of the Abandoned Elderly. We had a wonderful time there with the old people and the nuns, and all sorts of anecdotes came out of it. A few worth highlighting: the ice-cream smuggling Beto Gel did for three little old ladies, Fr Ferran’s (failed) attempt to convince the residents that Tato Salvador looked like a terrorist, the perseverance of a good 88-year-old lady who asked Júlia Ramió some thirteen times whether the ice cream was good, and the final conga, livened up by our guitars, in the middle of the care home.
To finish off, we had a spectacular dinner, with Paula González at the stove, which left us all full and, at the same time, wanting more.
That’s all for today, family. Good night and sweet dreams!