Via SAN XULAN – PONTE CAMPANA – CASANOVA – LEBOREIRO – FURELOS – MELIDE – BEONTE – CASTANEDA
Approx 27km
Urgh, had a terrible, terrible night’s sleep. The room was so hot, and over looked a main road with lots of trucks driving past. Of course there was also the obligatory snoring, but nothing worse than normal (mental note to self – do NOT marry a man who snores).
Unfortunately I was awoken at 4am by an old English man who was shouting at Jon to wake up IMMEDIATELY. Apparently Jon’s snoring was keeping ‘everyone’ awake and he ‘should leave the room’. I couldn’t believe the nerve of him, although this was the same man who had proudly told us earlier that he had let down the tires on a car that had been transporting some fellow pilgrim’s backpacks into the next town. Not exactly in line with the spirit of the Camino. I had to get out of bed to tell Jon that he didn’t wake me up and he wasn’t to leave the room till morning. However, leave he did, and I went back to sleep – only to be awoken by loud snoring. Upon closer investigation, guess who it was? You got it, Mr. Nasty Camino himself. He’ll get his in this life, I’m convinced of it.
Anyway, because of that incident, we were all tired in the morning, and as a result, it was a bit of a long day. We broke it up by stopping for coffee and cake in the morning, and doing some grocery shopping in Melide, where we also had lunch. In the afternoon we got caught in a brief shower, which left us all wet and frustrated!
My ‘should be’ highlight of the day was our stop in Casanova. I had been looking forward to seeing Casanova for days, and I was so excited that Megan and I made up a song about going to Casanova (to the tune of ‘Say My Name” by Destiny’s Child… of all tunes to choose from!). But when we got to the town, we were past it before we realised we had just walked through it. Talk about small Spanish towns! It left me wondering if it was indeed the home of the infamous Casanova (I’m guessing not, and I’m sure some people reading this will be shaking their heads at my lack of geographical knowledge...Don't be too shocked - this is the girl who was in Amsterdam when she decided that she should have gone to Holland instead.)
We stayed in Ribadiso, which was a converted Pilgrims Hospital that was renovated and converted into a pilgrim refuge in 1993. This Albergue was the last of the historical establishments on the Camino – which means we had to be close to Santiago! The Albergue was on the river, with a beautiful medieval bridge stretching across it. Being a huge lover of all things bridges, I was pretty pleased by this.
We had planned to have a’ family dinner’ in the Albergue, as my guide book (The Camino Frances Pilgrim Guides to Spain, by the Confraternity of Saint James) had indicated that there was a ‘large dining room and kitchen’ – but no grocery stores in town, so suggested we buy any food in Melide, which as mentioned earlier, we had. The meals we had planned to cook involved many jars and cans and bottles of ingredients, so we had divided the weight up between everyone’s backpacks and carried the the 12km from Melide in preparation for our amazing meal…..
…Well, as Murphy would have it, nothing went to plan! The kitchen and dining room were amazing. They were stone, cave like rooms, very dimly lit, and made me feel like I was living in the medieval times. Very haunting and great atmosphere….but when we entered the (amazing) kitchen, we were horrified to discover that the only thing in there was 1 pot....
Yes, 1 pot. No dishes, no cutlery... nothing! Megan went to the local restaurant to beg some plates, forks etc (and was kindly told that once their kitchen closed we were welcome to use anything in there….but that was too long a wait for us hungry pilgrims!). Somehow, we managed to cook an amazing meal. I was in charge of the soup (cooking my Camino specialty of sausage and bean soup, which I had treated many hungry pilgrims to over the past few weeks), and Megan made shrimp scampi. We had bread, salad and wine and it was fabulous. We managed to get around our lack of dishes problem by drinking our soup out of the bottles that our ingredients had come in – we felt very ingenious for that idea! It was a great night once we had figured dinner out – although I felt terrible for one of our fellow pilgrims, a young guy on his own who was cycling the Camino – he had to wait for such a long time until he could use the one pot in the kitchen to heat his dinner up… Opps!
To update: the black dog (who we christened Sirius after the Harry Potter character) was still following us today. I can’t believe how far he has travelled.
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