Last night we stayed in a modern Alberge that is known to have good facilities. It was very clean and the bunks were partitioned off into four bed rooms with doors and key cards. We shared with two young college girls. One from Germany and one from Austria. The partitions gave privacy and had the added benefit of blocking all air movement in the room with 50 people. (added sarcasm)
We also had a free sauna created by having no air vents in the shower room.
Troy would describe the building architecture as mid century East German.
We took a short walk today of about 14 miles. Only a small part of the trail was on dirt. But thankfully we had no cobblestones. The small roads we walked along or very quiet. We walked the last hour with two sisters from Holland who have children about the age of ours. It made the time pass very quickly but we had to part ways at the start of town as we were staying in two different areas.
We walked up to an Irish pub. Why go to a pub in Spain? Tapas! We ordered two pints of Guinness and for free we had a plate of cheese, ccalamari, and bowls of nuts and olives.
We had a bit of a problem when we got to our bargain hostel for the night. It looked pretty nice even though it was upstairs over and all-night disco. Our room was double-booked and after last night we didn't want to sleep in bunk beds again. We don't usually book ahead, but needed a good night's sleep.
The manager, Jose, contacted a friend who owned a place on the beach. Jose paid for the room with his own credit card and told us we get free breakfast on him in the morning. He will pick us up and take us back to the Camino after breakfast. The Camino provides.
The place on the beach is gorgeous. We had a wonderful seafood dinner walked on the beach enjoyed free beer and Tapas when we arrived, sangria and Tapas in the afternoon, and are looking forward to a good breakfast before we start walking tomorrow.
It is a little strange not being in town with a lot of our Camino friends, but this town was very small and the highlight was two Railroad Bridges. In the evening we don't all stay in the same places, but the towns are so small you run into people in the various cafes having dinner or drinking wine. Most people walk close to the same pace so there's a group of a maybe 30 to 40 people that we've got to know fairly well by sharing rooms, meals, or drinks.
Tomorrow we are in Pontevedra for the night. We have two or three short climbs of about 400 FT elevation and walk part of the way along the beach.
We are planning now to reach Santiago on Thursday. You'll be the Feast of Corpus Christi and there's a procession through town on streets covered with flower petals. Every town we've walked through in the last week has been preparing in their own way for this national holiday in Spain and Portugal. I'm sure if we weren't in the Santiago we would still have a wonderful time.
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| starting to see nice hills as we head north |
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| view from our room at the beach |
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| view from the sun-deck |
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| view from the café - sangria and mushrooms |
