We managed to get up and out by 7:30ish. Juliaja started out hiking with us today. She is on a time crunch and flies back to St Petersburg in less than a week. She started the trail in Leon, but took an extra day there to explore and then had some knee issues and ended up taking another day in Astorga so all of her cushion is now gone since she has to be back to work on Monday.
No one wanted to walk the extra block back into the town square since it was further from the trail. We headed toward the reservoir in the hopes of finding an open cafe where we could grab some food. We did find two overwhelmed cafes–you’d think they would anticipate pilgrim crowds but there was only one worker in each cafe with hundreds of fresh pilgrims on the trail. While we were waiting in a line, we ran into Kat who told us she had dinner with Richard (aka Bus-man) last night. We knew he was flying in but didn’t know exactly how we were all going to catch up with each other. He had reservations at an Albergue in the town before us. He’s a fast walker, so he’ll catch up with us today.
Even after our wait for “breakfast”, we still managed to be just slightly ahead of the pilgrim crunch. When we got to the bridge crossing the reservoir, we turned around and saw hundreds of hikers behind us. Somewhere in the middle of the pack we saw Brenda. By the time we made it to Gonzar in 4 miles of all uphill walking, Brenda had caught up with us. It was starting to look like the cloud cover which has given us some relief from the sun this morning might actually turn into rain.
Even though the cafe in Gonzar was packed when we got there, we decided we needed the break and could deal with the wait. Just as we got some cafe con leches, Pam noticed a bright yellow glow appear on the horizon moving our way–Richard had caught up with us and there was no way we were going to miss him in that shirt.
The six of us (Brenda, Juliaja, Richard, Shaun, Pam, and me) commandeered a table so we could all sit and get caught up with each other. Richard, Brenda, and Julija were all new to each other so we made introductions. While we were chatting away, an amazing thing happened. The fog turned to mist, the mist turned to a drizzle, and the new pilgrims melted away. Busses appeared and pilgrims disappeared. Taxis would troll up and down the roads the rest of the day while it was raining and the crowd continued to thin out.
We’ve only had a couple days of rain on this whole trip so it felt great to have a steady rain to cool things off. Richard was the only one without rain gear because BBC weather said no chance of rain. He walked all day in shorts and a fluorescent tee shirt and didn’t seem to mind the rain at all.
The rain wasn’t bad at all. It was great to be a little on the cool side for a change. The six of us walked together for a mile and then Brenda wanted to stop at another quieter cafe. She’s not enjoying the crowds and she tends to walk by herself during the day. She seems to enjoy solitude to think and contemplate life’s bigger questions. She had such a bad night’s sleep last night in the Albergue she was in that she contemplated taking a bus to Santiago and skipping the crowds then walking to Fisterra. After her second cup of coffee, she was calmer again–but it turned out that we didn’t see her again on the whole trip so we’re not sure what she ended up doing.
The five of us stopped at another cafe in Ligonde for some lunch. With all the rain, the snails were becoming active. One actually slimed its way onto my pack while we were eating. Not being one who likes to break up families, I forced her off back onto the wall (females of non-human species like me; it’s the intelligent humans that hold me in disdain).
After lunch, we ran into the film crews again, but they didn’t seem to be interested in making us the stars of the documentary. Apparently we stole the show yesterday and they wanted to maintain focus on their story rather than our characters–film producers can be so fickle. The rain also picked up more at times. By now, we were almost completely alone on the trail–fair weather pilgrims!
We made one more stop at an ant cafe–seriously, giant ants were the theme of the cafe. 6′ tall ants outside and 1′ ants on the walls inside. It was really kind of cool in a creepy sort of way. While we were having our coffees and Aquarius’ the rain decided to let up quite a bit. I took my rain jacket off and Richard started to dry off a bit.
The five of us made it into Palas de Rei around 4. We stopped at the first good looking Albergue we saw but they were completely full. They tried to tell us that the town was full and that they could get us into another Albergue just up the hill. We felt they were trying to scam us and just went on. Not even 100 meters on in the downtown area, we came to an Albergue/restaurant on the Main Street that looked pretty nice. I went in and checked. They had a couple of 6 bed rooms on the upper floor that we could choose from. If the five of us were willing to spend 12 Euros each, we were guaranteed no one else would be put in with us. Julija wanted to walk on to the next town, so it was just the 4 of us. We took our chances at 10 Euros and won the lottery.
In fact, we had the whole upper floor to ourselves. 4 toilets, 4 showers, 4 sinks, 20 beds for the four of us. The Albergue had laundry machines, 2 bars, and a restaurant in the basement that serves pilgrim meals. We went down to the restaurant after getting cleaned up and organized to have a beer. While we were having our beer, Anton and Maria walked by looking for a place to have supper. They decided to join us so we all stayed in and ate. While we were eating, Chris, Bob, Adrain, and Edele walked by as well as Fanny who we hadn’t seen since before Leon.
It was well past 8 by the time we got done eating, so Pam was ready for bed. Anton and Maria were going to come by the room around 9:30 to pick up their phone that Pam was charging for them. Richard, Shaun, and I went out for another beer down the street with Bob, Chris, and the Irish. I was later getting there so only Shaun and Richard were still around when I showed up. When we got back to the room at 9:45, Pam was still awake–she’s turning into a night owl. Of course, it’s worth noting that it doesn’t get dark until almost 11.
