I walked for the first four hours today alone in the rain, which was just as well because then no one could hear me whining about it. The route was easy to follow, the trails lovely, albeit hilly and muddy, and the views pretty much non-existent. I spent my time singing Robbie Williams songs and making a list of 500 things I’d rather be doing than hiking in the rain. For fun, I made another list of things I hate more than hiking in the rain. But since I only came up with a single item – winter camping – the exercise was over quickly.
I stopped for coffee and cake in Lourenza to wait for my friends and was entertained by Daniel, a pilgrim from France whose English was excellent. He both looked and sounded like he came from London. Daniel works as a chef of French cuisine, but has been walking the Camino from Toulouse, France, for the last two months. He’s taking his time, enjoying frequent rest days and some short 5-7-kilometer walking days. He bought a pair of comfortable hiking boots just before starting his Camino, but within a few days, they started giving him such problems that he lost both nails on his big toes. Reeling from the pain, he went to see a doctor in Spain. She asked him why he has been wearing women’s hiking boots.
My friends caught up to me in Lourenza and we walked the last 8.5 kms together to our perfect little albergue in Mondonedo. Along the way, we enjoyed some humour when a dangling thorny vine caught my hat and gently lifted it off my head. To see my hat hanging above the trail sent Birte and I into fits of laughter.
Our albergue tonight is excellent – great beds, laundry, hot showers, and even towels and sheets. Yesterday’s 5-Euro-per-night peregrino albergue in Vilela was a little sparse on the extras. Even the local bar up the lane, the only bar in town, was unable to serve us food despite their advertised menu. So, eight of us pilgrims pooled our groceries together and had a picnic in our albergue. There were only three chairs in the 34-bed room, so some of us sat on the edges of beds or stood to eat. It was a grand cuisine experience, not a five-star meal to be sure, but uniquely satisfying in the company of fellow pilgrims.
Our friend, Pip from New Zealand, started her Camino in St Jean Pied de Port in France, since she intended to walk the more popular Camino Frances. But on the day that she started, another 1,260 other pilgrims were also starting. The competition for beds was extreme, with some people leaving at 4am to try to get ahead and grab a bed before the albergues were full. Pip made it to Pamplona before she was fed up with the crowd and took the bus to Bilbao to walk the Camino del Norte. 1,261 pilgrims in one day? Lordy! Glad I finished that Camino last year.
