Santiago de Compostela July 07

I had no sense of accomplishment upon completing the Camino.  Maybe that is because it is not over....I still have the six-day Finisterre and Muxia legs...or maybe because I had/am having too many "rest"days.  It just does not feel like a big deal.  That said, although I have been to this city twice before, this was the first time here when the sun was shining.  That makes a huge difference!  There was a feeling of fun and delight in the plaza of the Cathedral as throngs of people so happy that they had arrived were celebrating.  In fact, one group, the group leader, that is, hired a piper and dancers for his charges:  

 (Go here to read about the Cathedral and here to see photos).

In bars and cafes nearby,  there were people eating and drinking and singing flamenco songs and clapping their hands in that distinct rhythmic, flamenco way .  Such a delight and so much energy!

Sometimes I have trouble knowing exactly when to use the word ironic, however, where I am staying, and let me tell you, it is a gorgeous place, is the height of irony:

Yes, I am in the Hotel of the Catholic Kings! Still shaking my head in wonder.

A view from my room:

But go to the  website and as you scroll down past the calendar and stuff like that, you will be able to click on different options, such as rooms, common spaces, and such.  My room is, for sure, the least expensive, but what detail.  Just two examples:  heavy, brass pulls on the closet door: 

and the hangers, which are covered in velvet and topped with brocade (the brocade does not show in the picture except for one tiny strip)

This final stage was not difficult and it was certainly better than most stages of El Norte:

Looks a lot like yesterday!  And, again, there were many opportunities to refuel if one felt the need.

Especially notable was the temperature.  It was 44, yes, 44 degrees when I set out at 6:30 a.m..  For the first time, I put on my wool gloves, happy, indeed, to have them!

Wisteria growing on a wall.  I cannot be 100% sure that those purply flowers are wisteria, but I am going with that since my knowledge of botany is, shall we say, limited:

Someone gave up too soon:

This afternoon I followed an injured bird into a church.  I hope his being there helped heal its injured wing:

Pedrouzo July06

 After a few miles, the road from Arzua meets the Camino Français, the famous Camino.  What a different experience!  I had been waiting to walk on something like this since May!

Granted, the entire stage was not like that, but it wasn´t on the road, either.

A particular lovely bit:

Some fields are waiting to be planted:

Some are waiting for harvest:

Shall I go?

I think I will stay:

Growing plants in old boots and sneakers is a thing:

There are tons of people on the Camino for the final stages.  I mean hordes,  

hundreds, slews, loads, flocks, throngs, crowds, multitudes, masses, waves, and they just keep coming and coming and coming and coming.  Oh, and to add interest to the scene, there are guys (I only saw men) on bicycles weaving through the people who are walking.  Yeah, it is a bit hairy.

The bars/cafés en route do a non-stop business.  People stop to eat and drink frequently.  It is all part of the scene!  

As I was returning from doing my errands in Pedrouzo to my wee room in this pension sort of place, I was really swimming against the tide!  This is a completely different feel from El Norte!  Oh, and even though poles are not needed, everyone has them.  It gives your arms something to do!   But the cool people use only one, it being more pilgrim-like that way

 Tomorrow it will be the same, but I leave early—OK, so do some other people—  but there will be many souls passing me, for sure!

Oh, today a guy stopped me and told me that my backpack was crooked.  He gave one strap a tug, and I gotta say, the pack feels so much better!

Sobrado Dos Monxes, July 04 and Arzua July 05

 Sobrado was the destination.  I am still at Bi Terra, the place in the middle of nowhere.  Had to wait 2 1/2 hours fot the taxi to pick me up after I reached the destination, but the weather was fine, I did a little grocery shopping, worked on the stupidest Spelling Bee ever (middle letter J), read the Daf, read the commentary on the Daf, read the news (it is never good), and walked around.  When I got back, at 2:30, I had a repeat of yesterday´s lunch.  Too bad it was so not delicious because to eat a meal beautifully presented, outside, on a gorgeous day, in lovely surroundings, should be quite a luxurious experience.  And it was except for the food!

Nothing remarkable about the stage today.  Kind of boring.

This is what the app refers to as a dirt path:

I really do laugh when the App says "Turn left on the dirt path" only there is no dirt.

It is my custom to let sleeping dogs lie:

                            

Even though Stella has cancelled the word "fat," I insist that this is one fat slug:

This was the perfect spot to sit and eat a plum:

There was a little lake near the Monastery of Sobrado Dos Monxes.  You can read about the lake/lagoon and the monastery here (And just BTW, Dos does not mean two in this context, it is a contraction of de los.)

Apparently, 15 Cistercian monks still live on the premises. They make dulce de leche and beer, and there may be a bookstore.  What the website says and what you see from the outside don´t exactly match up.

Friday, I did not start walking until close to 7:00 because it was a 20+ minute drive back to Sobrado It is already a big enough request to ask a taxista to pick you up at 6:30, and some won´t even if they advertise 24/7 service.  I worried about the day heating up, but it was not terrible. The walk, however, was super dullsville on pavement and asphalt.

I gotta tell you, you could become a serious animal rights person after seeing the sorry lot of some cows:

But at least they will have what to eat:

Is this kitty is guarding her food supply?  That is her secret:

                                    

I bought a cookie:

These cookies are supposed to resemble the curved, clay roof tiles.  It (the cookie), essentially sugar and slivered almonds, pairs well with dark chocolate.

There must be an important futbal game going on somewhere in Spain because people are going nuts screaming ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡GOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!   ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!!!!!      ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!!

I just watched a YouTube video of a group of Chasids in New Jersey, on the 4th of July singing God Bless America in English and Yiddish!  So, one guy was singing, but there were lots in attendance, including Cory Booker.  The rendition was quite touching! (The reception Irving Berlin got—in some circles— after he wrote this song was...well, open the link!)

The wikipedia entry on Irving Berlin is lengthy, but it is well worth reading the beginning.

 

Miraz July 03

 Not exactly Miraz because I walked a couple miles past Miraz and then got transported back to Bi Terra, the three-night-stay place.  Picked up again at 6:30 a.m. to be taken back to Baamonde.  I really don´t like these transportation arrangements, but there is no choice here for the non albergue crowd, so here I am.

Mostly the same walking conditions, you know, too much road, only easier. 

One of several huge masses of lavender on the property:

A very old, low wall, no doubt adequate to keep cows or other domestic beasties from wandering only there were none:

For a short stretch, there was an abrupt change of scenery:

A cat:

who wanted to make friends:

Old house:

I could not decide which of the trees had a more interesting shedding-its-bark look, so here are two:

Something appealing about the steps so carefully placed:

When I got back, I had yesterday´s dinner for lunch, as ordered.  It was a cod omelette.  Actually, it was lots of onions, lots and lots of onions and lots and lots of oil, in egg and a bit of cod, and the salad may have had some flavor, but I did not detect it.  Salt and pepper helped, but you have to ask for it as Spanish food tends to be very au natural.  This gastronomic detour will repeat tomorrow.  

Yesterday, there were two other guests here, women from Germany, in their seventies, I´d guess.  One of them, who spoke a little English, looked quite refreshed with lipstick and all, not as if she had trudged a bunch of miles. We got to talking.  When I commented on the too muchness of the hard surfaces of the route, she seemed puzzled.  It turned out that these two frauen are taking the bus from place to place!

The magnetic charger arrived to day much to my surprise since the tracking still had it in the warehouse in Santiago de Compostela!  And a good thing I was basking outside in some gorgeous weather when the DHL driver showed up because not a soul was around.  Rather than a signature being required, my passport number was!  ¡Qué raro!  Now I am all set charging wise, both overnight and emergency backup, and a good thing, too, because I am listening to The Last Lion, (a biography of Churchill) the first volume a mere 44 hours, and audio can eat up battery, at least it seems to.

Baamonde July 02

Before getting to the details of the day, I want to say that I have had it hasta la gorra (up to here, lit. up to the hat) with tuna.  I am so sick of it that I am going to take my chances tomorrow with a warmed-up-from-dinner scrambled eggs with cod and a salad (not warmed up) that the hotel will give me for lunch. I hope it will be tasty.  The hotel restaurant does get excellent reviews, but dinner time is too late for me to attend.

For three nights I will be staying at Hotel Bi Terra which is far from everywhere.  A taxista, Sergio by name, is ferrying me back and forth to the walk sites.  He is awfully nice!  I had to wait for him for over an hour today because a big part of his job is taking sick, elderly people to doctors´appointments, to the pharmacy, to the grocery, and on other errands.  This is not an uncommon job for taxi drivers in rural areas.  For me, the wait was not an issue; the weather was fine, I bought a Magnum as in ice cream, and worked on the Spelling Bee. While so engaged I met a woman whose walking companion had quit after a few days because the walk was so difficult.  The survivor of the pair said that her (not the frined´s) feet were just killing her from all the asphalt. 

As anticipated, the stage today was not difficult, only 12 miles, not spectacular by any means, but fine.

We will now see some trees or parts of trees.

We CAN see the tree

for the forest!

Tree making the most of a not great situation:

A wee house-look-alike structure:

A small church

And a cemetery near by

It is notable that the cemetery is way more decorative than the church.

Sergio told me—and he should know— that these elevated storage things are used to dry corn.  They are quite picturesque, are they not!

It was an uneventful day. Oh except for one thing!  The sun came out this afternoon.

 

Vilalba June 30+Jul 01

Blackout day.  No photos, no podcasts, no directions!  Went to open a navigational app and saw, with no small bit of horror, that the phone had not charged last night.  There was about 32% battery left.  OY!  This is so not good.  Dug into my pack and pulled out the back-up charger that had been biding its time for just such an occasion.  Connected phone to charger and the sirens went off alerting me that the phone was wet—which it was not— and that I had better disconnect the charger or risk damaging the phone.  "Oh, not again!"  This happened the other night, on which occasion I turned off the phone, turned it back on, reconnected it and it was fine.  This time that tactic did not work. By the time I finished fiddling, there was about 27% charge.  I knew I had to save what was left for difficult intersections and getting to the hotel. "I will have to navigate without a device."  This is my worst nightmare.  

Fortunately, the route was easy to follow, the waymarks plentiful and at all the right places.  The most critical moment was near the end where there was a traffic circle of such mammoth dimensions that a very high up pedestrian overpass about 1/4 mile long had been built to traverse it.  As I was contemplating whether one on this route was supposed to take advantage of this overpass—who else would be in such a ridiculous place—I espied a sign: 

that announced, yes, you do go up there, across, and down the other side. Part way across I did espy down below, another such sign—you cannot imagine the joy that sight produces— indicating a 90 degree change in direction.  By the time I reached the hotel, five and a half hours after setting out, the phone allowed itself to be charged.  Crisis averted.

I bought a tart:

It was about a 2 1/2  but they did wrap it up very nicely for take-out.

I will be in 

two nights—the tour company recommended an extra night here—and although I don´t really need it, and it is not a stop that invites leisure time, I will make the most of the extra day.  As opposed to the depressing digs of last night, sleazy might be a suitable adjective, here I am in a gorgeous Parador and the luxury feels divine.  

There was only one recommended walk for Vilalba, unless you were looking for  walks for the other Vilalba which is near Barcelona!  The walk was just shy of 6 miles, so I did it twice, once in one direction and once in the other.  Out of the 6 miles, only about one was the pretty part.  The rest was getting there and back.

In between the two walks, I went to the tech store to buy a magnetic charger for my phone.  What they had was a magnetic battery pack, so I bought that, but Alex was able to have a charger sent to my next stop, so I should be set, phone wise.

Enough of technical matters. Here is a view of the river:

And a view from a bridge:

What is notable about this mass of flowers is that they were growing in the middle of the river:

The walk, essentially a river walk, had some art displays:

I have no idea what any of them were about:

It also had an area where there were lots of frogs.  You could hear them, and a delightful chorus it was, but you could see nary a one.

A lively touch of color along an otherwise dreary road:

I am looking forward to the easier days ahead, easier in terms of mileage and terrain.