2012-10-03 Wednesday

2012-10-03 Wednesday

Triacastela / Sarria

Camino day 26. Today's segment is only 19Km.  It rained on and off overnight, and we woke up to a chilly and drizzly day. The Gang of Four and Gunther started walking at 0820, there was a long line of pilgrims heading out of Triacastela. Today, again, Nancy and I shipped our backpacks. 

Even though we were walking under light rain most of the morning, it was a beautiful trail and landscape. Quite often, we were walking through a "tunnel" formed by large overhanging trees on either side of the narrow trail. We had only one hill, climbing up 300 meters and climbing down 300 meters on the other side. 

The "tunnel"

Stone walls and the Yellow Arrow pointing the way

Farm house

Pilgrims in the rain

Erico on the Camino

The only problem with this segment is that there is only one bar right on the Camino, about 10 Km down the trail from Triacastela. 

We arrived in Sarria at 1230. The Gang of Four checked in at the Pension A Pedra, Gunther had to walk to the other side of town to get to his hotel, our was already full by the time he had called to make reservations. We showered, put our laundry to wash in the self-service washer-drier and we went out to have lunch at a nearby restaurant recommended by the innkeeper, were we had an excellent Pilgrim's lunch. 

Lunch - the soup

Lunch -pork with fries

When we returned to our hostel after lunch and went to check our laundry we saw Maude in there wearing her rain poncho. The poor thing had slept last night in an albergue that was infested with bed bugs, our hostel has a private albergue in the next building, that's where she is staying, and the innkeeper helped her disinfect all her clothes. First he sprayed ALL her clothes and put them in a tightly closed plastic bag and left the bag in the sun for a while, all she was wearing was he poncho; he did the same with her backpack. He also gave her a shampoo for her to take a thorough shower, she was now waiting for her clothes to finish washing to put them in the drier, with the highest heat setting, to finish off any remaining bed bugs. She showed me the bytes on her arms and legs, poor thing.

I went by myself for a walk in the old town center, but there is nothing really interesting to see. The others opted for a "siesta."

Sarria (population 13,000) is about 115 Km from Santiago de Compostela, and since the requirement to obtain the pilgrimage certificate is to walk at least the last 100Km (if biking or horseback riding the requirement is at least 200 KM) it is a convenient starting point for many pilgrims doing the least amount of walking. There are tour companies that offer pilgrimage packages that drop the pilgrims in this town and pick them up in Santiago 7-10 days later.

In the evening, Geovan, Paulo's Brazilian friend that lives in Norway, arrived to walk the rest of the Camino with us. Gunther and Ruth, a German woman we all had met back in O Cebreiro, came to our hostel for after dinner drinks. The innkeeper closed the bar at 2100, but let us stay there drinking, he joined us at our table.  Ruth is married, but is doing the Camino alone, her husband does not like this kind of things, she teaches Spanish for high school, she speaks it fluently. Adele was also there, she is a 30-something single woman from Barcelona, Paulo and Terry had met her while they were walking to O Cebreiro. Terry and Nancy retired at around 2200 or so, the rest of us stayed past 2300.