Rhonda’s Travel Blog

Wednesday night in Santillana del Mar, Spain I met my first New Mexican pilgrim on the Camino.

She sat across from me at the communal dinner at the convent. I had not eaten a pilgrims meal on this whole Camino until that night; it’s almost like we had to meet.

A woman sitting to my right asked where we were from. Everything after that was eerily similar about us.

This is where it gets loco:

Both of us are about the same age

Both of us work in education

Both of us are divorced

Both of us were born in April

Both of our fathers were redheads

Both of us have a son that recently graduated from high school

Both of us were wearing dresses

Both of us have long, brown hair

Both of us raved about NM food (specifically the chile)

Both of us have one grey gato

Both of us repeatedly used the hot sauce at the table to add fire to our food

Both of us were very interested in tasting Basque Burnt Cheesecake

Both of us stayed at the Cats Hostel in San Sebastián just days apart (even though there are literally thousands of places to sleep in San Sebastián)

I mentioned a certain pilgrim (Egle from Lithuania) because she gave me great advice; she had met her and spoke with her too, weeks ago just like I did

My brother’s name is Charles, her brother’s name is Charlie

The more we talked, the more similarities arose. After dinner, we parted ways and another pilgrim asked me if her and I were related.