Friday, January 2, 2009
May 28, 2008 - Pontevedra to Briallos
This is pretty close to my journal entry, just a few things deleted.
Started the day with two cafe con leche from the machine. Heaven!
We started before nine but spent some time in the city, taking pictures and visited a church for a stamp on our credential. It started to pour rain, a truly soaking rain for most of the morning. We walked through small towns and then another forest. Again, it was all just so lovely.
We started a gentle climb through the forest then came upon a little bar, something Don Pulpo. Pulpo was the joke of the trip and early on, Ray was taking pictures of everything that had an octopus on it.
We stopped at a bar and I had a cafe con leche. We ran into the New Zealanders there. They were staying at hotels rather than refugios so we only saw them on the road. We got the bar to stamp our credential then we headed out to eat our bag lunch in this old station type structure across the street. Amazing how such simple food can be so satisfying. I had two small "black" tomatos, a piece of bread, a slice of ham and cheese (they cut in nice and thick there), a fig and some almonds. None of this was refrigeratated overnight!
Before we hit Don Pulpos, the path was very wet, basically underwater. My lovely wonderful expensive Italian leather boots stayed completely dry as they have through the entire trip. As for the rest, their hiking shoes were soaked through.
It finally stopped raining and the sun came out later in the afternoon. We were able to take off the pack covers and my towel and panties were able to dry.
Today I was first really able to relate to the original pilgrims, truding along - hungry, thirsty and tired.
I wanted to go on to Caldas de Reise, it was supposed to be a great resort town with lots going on but the rest wanted to stay at Briallos for some reason, I think because they didn't want to pay for a hotel room. I was so pissed, the refugio was in the middle on nowhere, no bars, no restaurants - NOTHING! Angela, the Canadian girl we met two nights ago was here when we got there. The refugio was open but no keeper. Angela said the refugio woman earlier told her of a store and restaurant nearby, a Casa Blanco. We headed out toward some houses on a hill and asked a man working in his yard if there was a place to get food. He pointed us to a "white house" across the highway. Turns out it was a tiny little store in this lady's house. It was locked when we got there but the woman saw us and opened up. We picked up pasta and sauce. I got some yogurt for breakfast, a small chorizo and beer. When we got back to the refugio, we ate like pigs. It was comical, I was actually licking the bowl!
I wish we went on to Caldas de Reis. We likely would have run into other pilgrims and had a decent restaurant meal and some fun in the city.
Other than Angela, only one other pilgrim showed up here, a young guy from Portugal. Nice kid, speaks good English. He asked if he could buy one of our beers and I gave him one. Later, I gave him another while he was eating dinner. He was very appreciative.
Additional Thoughts:
Other than the thought of missing out of a possible really good time in Caldas de Reis, another reason I wanted to go on was because it would have made Wednesday a long day, Thursday a shorter day and then Friday, the day we were to reach Santiago, another long day. We hadn't had a nice restaurant meal since Sunday night in Tui (I don't count the Chinese restaurant - we might as well have had pizza). It seemed there was really a lot of see and do in the town and I felt like I really missed out on experiencing one of the Camino's highlights.
Other pilgrims mentioned that you could get a hotel in Caldas de Reis for about 30 Euros. That would be only 15 Euros each. I thought the extra 12 Euros over the cost of the refugio would have been well worth it for the experience.
The refugio was in an old school house in the middle of farm country. It was the only one we encountered that had separate men's and woman's dorms.
Started the day with two cafe con leche from the machine. Heaven!
We started before nine but spent some time in the city, taking pictures and visited a church for a stamp on our credential. It started to pour rain, a truly soaking rain for most of the morning. We walked through small towns and then another forest. Again, it was all just so lovely.
We started a gentle climb through the forest then came upon a little bar, something Don Pulpo. Pulpo was the joke of the trip and early on, Ray was taking pictures of everything that had an octopus on it.
We stopped at a bar and I had a cafe con leche. We ran into the New Zealanders there. They were staying at hotels rather than refugios so we only saw them on the road. We got the bar to stamp our credential then we headed out to eat our bag lunch in this old station type structure across the street. Amazing how such simple food can be so satisfying. I had two small "black" tomatos, a piece of bread, a slice of ham and cheese (they cut in nice and thick there), a fig and some almonds. None of this was refrigeratated overnight!
Before we hit Don Pulpos, the path was very wet, basically underwater. My lovely wonderful expensive Italian leather boots stayed completely dry as they have through the entire trip. As for the rest, their hiking shoes were soaked through.
It finally stopped raining and the sun came out later in the afternoon. We were able to take off the pack covers and my towel and panties were able to dry.
Today I was first really able to relate to the original pilgrims, truding along - hungry, thirsty and tired.
I wanted to go on to Caldas de Reise, it was supposed to be a great resort town with lots going on but the rest wanted to stay at Briallos for some reason, I think because they didn't want to pay for a hotel room. I was so pissed, the refugio was in the middle on nowhere, no bars, no restaurants - NOTHING! Angela, the Canadian girl we met two nights ago was here when we got there. The refugio was open but no keeper. Angela said the refugio woman earlier told her of a store and restaurant nearby, a Casa Blanco. We headed out toward some houses on a hill and asked a man working in his yard if there was a place to get food. He pointed us to a "white house" across the highway. Turns out it was a tiny little store in this lady's house. It was locked when we got there but the woman saw us and opened up. We picked up pasta and sauce. I got some yogurt for breakfast, a small chorizo and beer. When we got back to the refugio, we ate like pigs. It was comical, I was actually licking the bowl!
I wish we went on to Caldas de Reis. We likely would have run into other pilgrims and had a decent restaurant meal and some fun in the city.
Other than Angela, only one other pilgrim showed up here, a young guy from Portugal. Nice kid, speaks good English. He asked if he could buy one of our beers and I gave him one. Later, I gave him another while he was eating dinner. He was very appreciative.
Additional Thoughts:
Other than the thought of missing out of a possible really good time in Caldas de Reis, another reason I wanted to go on was because it would have made Wednesday a long day, Thursday a shorter day and then Friday, the day we were to reach Santiago, another long day. We hadn't had a nice restaurant meal since Sunday night in Tui (I don't count the Chinese restaurant - we might as well have had pizza). It seemed there was really a lot of see and do in the town and I felt like I really missed out on experiencing one of the Camino's highlights.
Other pilgrims mentioned that you could get a hotel in Caldas de Reis for about 30 Euros. That would be only 15 Euros each. I thought the extra 12 Euros over the cost of the refugio would have been well worth it for the experience.
The refugio was in an old school house in the middle of farm country. It was the only one we encountered that had separate men's and woman's dorms.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
