Grañon
We arrived mid afternoon to a small village/town of Grañon on Tuesday, June 24th. In most of the towns, the Camino path goes right by the church so Cara and I stop in when the church is open. It was open in Grañon so we went in and sat to catch our breath. We also put in a 1 euro coin to light up the altar. As we sat, several kids ran in and were up on the altar, they found matches and were lighting the candles. It was delightfully refreshing as most of the churches we've visited have been very austere with a volunteer watching over the visitors!
Our accommodations that night were in a hostel called a Donativo, meaning you pay what you can. It was part of the church building itself. It was no frills - mats on the floor, communal cooked dinner, etc. The guidebook says they sleep 40, though never turn anyone away - so we had maybe 45 people on Tuesday night. The mats were put right up against one another with no space. That was an interesting experience!
We all worked on dinner, peeling potatoes, things for the salad, chopping onions. The dinner was salad and a kind of soup/stew that had potatoes and chorizo, plus we had bread (and wine).
Dinner completed we formed an assembly line with the tables, pashing all the dirty dishes one way then putting big tubs of warm water with soap and plain water for rinsing. Some people washed, rinsed, dried and others put away.
It took much longer with the crowd of people, but when done we had a pilgrims service in the choir loft which was accessible from the room we slept in. It felt like we were going through a secret door. There were candles in the loft and the altar was lit - a wonderful setting. We prayed for the pilgrims who had stayed there the previous day then we went around passing a candle and sharing what our Camino experience has been this far. We made 2 circles, one inside the other with each circle facing the other and then said the Lord’s prayer in our native language. There were people from Spain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, the US, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan (and maybe a couple of other countries). It was very moving. My only complaint is that with so many people it took quite a while and we didn't get to bed until after 11:30pm.
This was one of my favorite experiences so far!
