Rachael and the priest

So yesterday evening, after Rachael and Mandy and I had settled into our own private albergue, Bart the Jesuit came over to visit us. He wanted Mandy to walk on his back. Apparently he´d be making the same request for days, and Mandy had repeatedly demurred, as she did once again. But Rachael said she´d have a go. He lay down on the floor between two bunkbeds and she stepped aboard. For the next five minutes or so she expertly worked her feet over his back, while he groaned loudly and apparently with pleasure. Turns out she has trained as a massage therapist. After Bart left she said, "I just wanted to shut him up."

At lunch she had asked him if he missed having sex. He said, "my brother only has sex twice a month, so I figure I´m not missing much." But as Rachael pointed out later, "he talks an awful lot about sex for a priest."

At dinner last night he told us that during the first weeks on the Camino he had repeatedly dreamed of ex-girlfriends. Rachael said, "were they sexual dreams?" He said no, but then said, "Well, one was." Rachael asked him to elaborate but he became shy. Then Rachael said that she had only ever had three sex dreams: one involving Steve Martin, one with Patrick Swayze, and one with Starsky and Hutch. The latter she described to Mandy and I later back in our room; it involved a tent in the desert and Bedouin outfits.

At dinner Mandy turned the conversation from sex dreams to occult topics: palm reading, fortune telling, and astrology. She and Rachael entered into an animated discussion, while Bart became visibly bored. He ordered a hierbas liquer. Earlier he´d told us he´d had two whiskeys on arriving at the albergue. The life of a Jesuit priest seems pretty sweet. Full ride for doctoral work in Madrid, a month on the Camino (with ample funds for alcoholic beverages)--and he had studied for his undergrad degree in London. Of course there´s service of some sort too, at least later. Also, he told Mandy that the Jesuits take a vow of poverty. I´m not quite sure what that means these days.

This morning I set off at six gain, in the company of Rachael and Mandy. We walked about thirty kilometers, through off and on rain, through more rolling farmland, green and lush and occasionally forested. A mole ran out in front of and almost under the feet of Rachael and she screamed. We ended up in the largish town of Melide, which is not particularly attractive; the albergue is awful, the worst I´ve stayed in: dirty and run-down and unpleasant. A come-down after recent nights.

I´m only fifty kilometers from Santiago, so I´ll arrive at the end of the pilgrimage in just two more days. After a day of rest I plan to walk on another three days to the sea.