Day 16: A Long 32kms

Twas a fitful sleep last night for most of the pilgrims in the albergue.  As atmospheric as it was sleeping in a converted church, the acoustics meant that every snore, every tossle, the sound of everyone gettting up to use the facilites was amplified.  I slept okay till about 4am...then was fully awake by 5:30am as the first eager-beaver pilgrims started getting ready for their day´s walk.

We were quite spoiled on the Madrid route, the lack of people meant that we were pretty much guaranteed a bed every night, no matter what time we rocked up, but here on the Camino Frances it´s a completely different story.  Because of their sheer numbers, pilgrims get up at ungodly hours to ´race´ to their day´s destination to ensure they have a place to lay their heads at night.  They´re often away before daybreak, finding their way by headlamp.  An unwelcome introduction to this half of the walk, as expected as it was.

Estefan had planned that we would get up at 6:45am, but I was up, dressed, packed and pacing by 6am.  The rustling of the early-bird´s packing their bags, using the bathroom, using the microwave, having their breakfast, drove me from my bed earlier than planned.  The guys soon followed and we hit the road at 7am.

-1 celsius outside, a nasty surprise walking out the albergue door!  A quick stop on the bench outside to add a fleece and gloves to my ensemble, and we were off.  The 2nd unpleasant episode was having to walk through a throng of very drunk young adults, disgorging from a just-closing disco.  We didn´t have any issue (must have been my sharp walking poles!) but a couple we spoke to later had to confront a hooligan in order to pass - Sunday morning in a small town...

The route we chose to walk ended up being quite beautiful.  It was a fairly manicured path alongside a paved route but as it was Sunday there was no traffic, other than the steady stream of pilgrim cyclists all heading west, and plenty of shade trees along the way.

We walked, stopped for a coffee.  We walked, stopped for a soda.  Then we walked....  And we walked.  Estefan was obviously over his blisters as he took the lead and never gave it up.  He was raring to continue on to the 4th town but after 31kms, Mike & my feets had had enough.  I mutinied, and fortunately the other agreed to stop.  I think E´s reasoning was that there´d be more to see in the next, larger town but there are plenty of Spanish pilgrims here to converse with (which he is really good at) and it turned out, according to our hospitalero, that the next albergue filled up completely by 3pm.  (Ours has beds for 50 and mattresses for many more).

It´s 8:30pm and I´m in one of the 3 tiny bars in town.  We had our usual 3-course lunch at 3pm, so dinner is out of the question, but I felt that an evening glass of vino tinto was in order.  Drinks always come with a little ´pincho´- tiny taster of something.  In my case, a slice of nice cheese and ham.  I stole a piece of bread from the 2 French pilgrims at the bar beside me, and now we are discussing the weather with the barman in 3 languages, comparing reality with the trusted almanac he keeps behind the bar.

The French men had a bit of trouble paying their bill, so I translated the barman´s french into French for them (I´m multilingual!); then when they left, I chatted with a man from Bratislava who lives in the Canary Islands now, but used to live in Deep Cove (Vancouver suburb).  This is his 2nd Camino - the first was in the ´70's which he walked penniless, depending on hand-outs the whole way!  That would never fly these days, the locals here mostly have less than the gortex-outfitted, foreign tourists streaming through their towns like locusts (thanks for the imagery, Rebekah!)

Anyway, it was a fun, chatty night but it´s now 9:30pm and I must return to the albergue for bed as I´m sure it´s past lights-out for my new Camino Frances early-bird walking companions.