19/06/07
Sarria to Gonzar
It was raining as I left and kept on raining. I met a Spanish chap and he was taking a photo of a road name signpost. He explained Margarita was his sister's name and he wanted to show her the notice with her name on it. We chatted and I found he came from Altea, a village not far from where I used to live in Spain.
It was a nice walk but I got wetter and wetter, 5.2 kilometres brought me to Barbadelo and I stopped for a coffee and cognac to keep the germs away.
The little bar was packed out with Peregrinos and cyclists all soaked and with the same idea. Now lanes and paths over some pretty country but still it rained. I put a towel round my neck to help soak it up and eventually after 6 kilometres I found another bar in Brea. As soon as I entered the packed bar I remembered the place. Then, it was our Spanish group that came in out of the rain and filled the place and we had eaten well. Now every nationality was here and I had a job to find a space to hang my waterproof cape and a chair to sit on.
I joined two German ladies at a tiny table and noticed one was in tears! I managed to order and got my coffee and pañada, (a savoury pastry) and gathered the lady was crying because she was so wet and tired and she wanted to stop walking, but her friend was very unsympathetic. I was told they had walked from the French border. I tried to calm her and mediate, by saying
"You could possible stop here and walk tomorrow, or perhaps we could try to get you a taxi to Portomarin. Your friend can walk, and you meet up there later."
She wiped her eyes and cheered up at the last comment. I now asked the bar lady if she could ring for a taxi to take her to Portomarin and she said she could and my new friend cheered up. The phone call was made and I managed to get it all arranged for her.
"The taxi will arrive shortly, the bar lady will call you and you are to tell the taxi driver to take you to the municipal albergue."
The rain was easing and bar was beginning to thin out. I made sure they both knew what was happening.
"The taxi will be here soon so don't worry" I assured her, then I too left.
Now it was my turn to get lost.
I was not to meet this poor lady and her friend again till I arrived in Santiago where I had a coffee with them and I said, as we sat down
"Congratulations on your arrival."
"OH! but she never walked it" cut in the friend!
"Oh never mind you can walk the last bit another year perhaps," I said looking at her poor companion who suddenly looked utterly miserable and liable to burst into tiers again
The first continued firmly,
"I'm not going to walk with her next year!"
Maybe it's a good time for her to change friends I thought!
Back to Brea.
The sun came out I was in heaven looking for four leaf clovers and missed the sharp right turn at the bottom of a hill!
Completely unaware of the mistake I continued across the bottom of the valley and up the other side, cutting diagonally up the valley wall and came to a Y junction.
Imagine I am walking the top arm towards the stem and the stem is up hill. On my left the other arm went again up hill again too, but in the opposite direction. A big car was waiting in the middle of the country road junction and its occupants were looking at their maps.
"Does that road go to Ferreiros?" said the guy, pointing to the road I had come up.
"I have no idea!" I said, "I'm on Camino, I'm just looking for yellow arrows." I said laughing.
Just then a yellow car came down the hill towards us.
"I'll ask him" I said and I stopped it and turning round faced the way he was going pointed at the fork where I had come from and asked
"Does that road go to Ferreiros?"
The young man answered,
"Si arriba" he said with a casual wave of the hand.
He put it in gear and drove round the stationary car and disappeared down the road I had just come up. I walked back to the first car and said to them what I had been told
"Si arriba" but I pointed up the hill of the right fork, after all (arriba) means up in Spanish! The couple thanked me and told me the Camino was also supposed to pass Ferreiros!
Now that may be, but I was not going to change my way till I saw a yellow arrow or was told by a local! So as they drove off I continued straight on up the hill and came to a row of cottages. Here I was soon joking with an elderly man and his wife and I gave them both a four-leaf clover that I had just found. They in turn told me I had missed the turning! I must now must go back all the way to the bottom, cross the valley again and at the bottom of that hill look for the yellow arrow and take the sharp left that I had missed.
"Goes to Ferreiros!!!!!! he said.
On the way back I passed the fork in the road where I had sent the pleasant couple in the car, in the wrong direction! I felt a bit guilty and wondered how long it would be before they found out their mistake!
A while later, after I had completed all the moves the old man had told me to make, I heard a car coming from behind and waved as they tooted and waved back as they went by. I noted they were laughing. A bit later the road came to an end and there was the same couple in their car. Laughing she wound down the window and we chuckled as I told her how I thought (arriba) was up, not straight on. Then I gave her a four-leaf clover that I had just found! She looked at it in disbelief and went on to explain that they had just started a help group for mentally disabled children and had called it (Trébol de cuatro hojas!) The Four leaf clover!
I don't know for sure but I had the feeling that they were looking for property for this venture and if so, a prettier spot would be hard to find.
'I do hope everything goes well for them' I thought as I set off again following the faded yellow arrow pointing down a narrow track.
Soon I was asking a local farmhand about his beautiful cow that he was looking at. I learnt,"Yes lots of green grass for the cows to eat this year, all the rain you know!"
Now on past the tiny hamlet of Rozas and downhill as the sun came out again but there was lots of mud! I had to climb the stone wall and take the top then into the field to pass one particular patch of thick mud and foul smelling cow dung!
At last in bright sunshine, I crossed the bridge and climbed the huge flight of stone steps up into town.I chuckled to myself remembering the howling gale and horizontal rain that had met us here last time and how we had been packed into the albergue with dripping coats hanging from all the bunk beds and only a cold shower! I walked to the same albergue but the door was closed and when it didn't open I presumed they were full. Wandering back down the street I felt glad really, I now found I wanted a different place this time. I tried two more but they were a bit expensive, and for some reason that feeling grew, I just wanted to go on.
On the far side of town I found the footbridge where you cross the water again and I set off at a good pace up the hill. It was hard going, hot and uninteresting and I found I now had little drinking water! Most was a tarmac road too. I tired quickly on the 8 kilometres between Portomarin and the tiny village of Gonzar. Just before arriving I found a water fountain and filled my bottle and took a big swig Yuk!!! It was the most horrible water ever tasted reminding me of the mud and cow dung mixture I'd passed earlier! I tipped it away and I couldn't get rid of the taste for ages. At last I came to Gonzar where I went in the café next to the albergue to have a coffee.
"You want a bed?" asked the old man behind the bar
"Better book in quick and come back for that coffee" he said
I took his advice and got my bunk and put my boots to dry on the draughty staircase then washed my shirt and socks and hung them on a line between my bunk bed and the next in front of the open window as the rain was returning. Then I went for my coffee.
Returning later I found Yollanda and Spanish John in the lounge and I cooked a simple stew and shared it with them. Later I was annoyed to find, my cooking pots were being used by two men, who had not even gone to the trouble to find and ask me! I had already found out I had lost a wooden spoon last night when the English couple had used it and not put it back.
My things are in a lightweight plastic box and I always put them together to show they don't belong to the albergue. Now I had no wooden spoon that I always use when using the soft aluminium cooking pot to keep it unmarked. Aluminium is bad for you I believe, now these guys were eating straight from my pot with a steel spoon!
I carry cooking gear and suffer blisters because of the weight, which is my choice, I sure don’t carry it to make sure these big hefty guys can eat and not get blisters! I went to bed in a bit of huff, forgetting to ask Yollanda what time she would leave tomorrow.
END DAY 35 = approx. 28.3 km Sub Total = 530.4 km Total = 862.5 km
