Santiago by Seventy 7

Tuesday 17^th April

                The bed in the albergue of los Reparadores cost only E4.00 (£3?) for the night, but have decided that there must be limit below I should not in future go.  This is alright for backpackers and a certain type of traveller, but there must be a better than this – which I can also afford.

            I leave at 0730 and stop in the Calle Mayor for a hot chocolate and a bun: if not one0horse, then pretty a one street town, leading to the fascinating Puente de Reina, built by the wife of Sancho III in the 12c to facilitate the huge number of pilgrims passing this way.

            Last night I popped into the Iglesia del Crucifijo complete with its German, 14C epsilon shaped cross and startled myself fin the church opposite, complete with its gilded retablos and scary, life-like statues in dark alcoves.   On the way out of town I also visit the convent of 12C of Santiago, complete with its grills behind which the nuns watched the services and received communion.

Henriq passes me on the slope out of town and there is a brief acceleration in my pace until I tell him to get on ahead.   Time enough to discover that in Barcelona he is an entrepreneur, buying and selling clothes, and has recently left his girlfriend who, he explains, ‘whose biological clock is ticking’ (yes, we can translate that!) and he thinks it’s unfair on her if he doesn’t wasn’t to settle down.

A few minutes later María overtasks me walking very quickly, and asks if I have seen Henriq, I tell her he’s just ahead – has something happened?

Next to overtake me are Stephen and Alastair or ‘Mac’ who become my best friends for the day.   They have both recently left the army as Warrant Officers and have different tales to tell me about of their careers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and working for various close protection squads in the FCO and the UN.   We walk in a three and in pairs, and I have to say that they are two of the finest gents I have met for a long time.   Stephen especially looks after me and wants to adjust the straps on my pack and make sure I’m drinking enough water, feeds me Brufen, also, I didn’t notice him doing it buys our drinks at lunchtime.

            Stephen is wearing some kind of exercise tights which re giving him nappy rash! So we poi not a pharmacy at Mañeru and help explain what he needs.

We march through the next village Cirauqui, but at Lorca we stop for lunch and they change socks and we sit for half an hour and refresh ourselves.   I have decided to stop at Villatuerta, which will make it a 20 kms or 12-ish miles for the day.   Though IU have to say there is something very wrong with the Spanish reckoning of distances and in the guidebook.    Villatuerta is the highest point the day (1673’) and my legs won’t carry me any further.   The day has been sunny though not very hot, and Stephen and Mac show me to the albergue which is called the Casa Mágica.  

And indeed it is.   It’s an ancient Spanish house in the middle of a recently re-developed suburb.     I’m greeted by a Great Dane who barks once for his mistress who is an ethereal beauty: an oval face, piercing blue eyes, and blonde hair.   She is Simone, a Brazilian who met her Portuguese husband on the walk and decided to refurbish la  Casa Mágica as an albergue.   I’m the first to arrive today and it’s perfect.   Simone whisks off my washing which I have carried wet from Puente la Reina, shows me the establishment, strokes my beard and recognising my exhausted state gives me a hug of welcome.  

It’s Spain and 14.30 so I indulge in a siesta which takes me to five o’clock.   When I truly wake up, my washing is neatly folded at the foot of my bunk.   I’m dozing when three new travellers are shown to my room and I can hardly believe what I’m hearing – they are from Lund where so many years ago I was at university.   Anyway it is polite to say something before they say something rude in their own language!       

The three Swedes are Linus, Martin and Johan.   The local restaurant doubles and triples as a community centre, and old folk’s home and the pilgrims’ supper is served in the community hall where five old biddies are playing cards.   While we are dining their children arrive to take them home and as each walks past our table they solemnly wish us good night and ‘Buen camion.’  Supper is lentil soup, stew, and cuajada or curd.   Remind me not to bother with cuajada again, a sort of (very) poor man’s yoghourt.

We dine the five of us – all there is at la Casa Mágica – with Marianne (?) a German woman who has vaguely been accompanying us en route.    She is a marriage guidance counsellor at home in Germany and the boys are amused to draw her out and seek tips for their relationship with their girlfriends back home in Sweden.   She is imprecise, but confirms what I have always thought, that man will never understands woman.

Later Linus confides that he is bored and disappointed with his friend a and is thinking of leaving them.   But he is also very drunk, he’s been training for this walk while his friends haven’t and he wants to get on and meet girls.    We shall see in the morning, when my destination is Villamayor de Monjardín, ‘only’ 12 kms away.