Life's a Stitch

Oh that Brierly Guide! All pilgrims who use it will tell you their annoyance with the incline charts, and even the narrative stating hills so small they won't be noticed. Anyone can tell by the scenery that's it's impossible to go anywhere without tremendous ups and downs. So up and down we went. The occasional difficulty of the afternoon was surpassed by the beauty of the surroundings.

We saw a woman on the trail who appeared to be having great difficulty. We're guessing her to be about 75 in obvious distress, with seriously swollen ankles, carrying a huge heavy pack. We learned of her Camino reputation, that if approached, she would snarl "keep your distance!" So I bade her Buen Camino and kept going, hoping we wouldn't hear of her demise en route. Maybe that was her desire. We later heard that her day's destination was a town appropriately named Hospital.

After a very steep incline not mentioned by Brierly, we arrived in O Poio, a town of two buildings. The accommodation included something akin to the lodge from the movie 'the Shining' and an alburgue that the Shining lodge operator informed us was full of chinches (bedbugs) and cukarochas (no translation needed).

We chose the former although the ground floor looked as if it hadn't been swept in years. There was a promising sign on the building that breakfast was their especialidad. The owner informed us that dinner would be served at 7:00. It was not as if we had a choice.

Prior to the Camino I read many books in preparation. Just before our departure a high school classmate recommended "Walk in a Relaxed Manner: Life Lessons From the Camino" by Sister Joyce Rupp. She puts into perspective each challenge met on the Camino: hunger, pain, disappointment, travelling with others and many more. Tonight was an opportunity to practice a few of her lessons.

I retreated to the room for a sort of hot shower while C elected to warm up in his own manner. The actual texts sent to each other are as follows:
Chuck: How bizarre is this? I am sitting in total quiet on a mountain top in Spain smoking a Cuban cigar and drinking cognac?
Li: I am shivering in a room on a mountaintop in Spain with my gloves on. How bizarre is that? How about checking if we can get some heat?

My good spouse eventually left his perch on a beautiful mountaintop:

and managed to get the heat turned on in the room for a couple of hours and I shed the gloves in time for dinner.

The meal approached with trepidation, was amazingly good, cooked solely by the pension operator. Caldo Gallego, was followed by a saut��ed pork chop, boiled potatoes and a mound of delicious cabbage topped with a fried egg. So dessert was only canned peaches, but they were pretty good as well. Here is our innkeeper, cook, but obviously not a floor sweeper, with half a Rhode Island pilgrim couple we've met in recent days, another Hemmingway lookalike.