We awoke around 7:30am and quickly gathered our things. Most of the albergue have a check-out time of 8:00am! I was definitely feeling stiff, but it was nothing that I couldn’t stretch out. After waiting outside a restaurant for 15 minutes for it to open up (when it should have been open a half hour before), we decided to find a different place to eat. But, since the town was so small and we were such a big group, we had to split into two groups. Breakfast consisted of tea or coffee and toast with jam. (This continued to be our breakfast every morning, although most of us never lost hope that one day we would wake up to pancakes, eggs, and bacon). Only Americans really know how to do breakfast.
By 9am we were on the trail again, which started with a steep hill. The group began to break up into smaller groups fairly quickly, as we all had our own preferred pace. About an hour or two into our walking I was just it was going to rain. It was windy and the clouds ahead were grey and heavy. All we got were a few drops though. Still, it was plenty cold and I was glad that I had my fleece with me.
What’s great about the camino is that everyone comes from all around the world with the same goal in mind. Their reasons for doing the camino vary, and it’s a very interesting question to ask other pilgrims. Everyone is super friendly and talkative (despite the language barriers). I met a sweet Belgium woman, probably in her 60s, traveling with her husband and friends in a group. We spoke a bit in French and continued to exchange greetings and smiles for the next three days as we saw each other. I also met a man from Switzerland who was traveling with a group of individuals from all over the world. Apparently one of them had a fight with his wife and started walking from his doorstep….in France! Another was a 75-yr-old Italian who walks from 8 to 12 everyday and had been doing so far a couple weeks by then.
Around 1 or 1:30 I arrived in our next stopping point, Palas de Rei. About an hour later everyone had arrived. Those of us who had arrived earlier bunkered down on a set of stairs and enjoyed having our picture taken (“look, real pilgrims!”) by tourists traveling by tour bus.
Again we broke up into two groups to check in to two different albergues. The albergue I stayed in reminded me more of a hostel: it had 3 floors with rooms for 6 – 12 people. We had a room to ourselves…except for one woman. (And it just so happened that this woman was a snorer. I put my earplugs in before going to sleep for preventative measures, so luckily I wasn’t bothered to badly. Others weren’t so lucky however).
Once again, we were all famished and ready for lunch. And once again, the bread was devoured immediately. For a first plate I had a green salad (nothing special, but somehow tasted incredible). My main course was sole with potatoes and normally could feed a family of four. I put a sizeable dent into though. Dessert options were the similar to yesterday: flan, pudding, yogurt, or ice cream, so I passed.
For the afternoon, we all laid in our beds, talking, reading, or stretching. By now my legs were started to really feel the distance. Walking up and down stairs was painful and many of us had an awkward limp. If this is what feeling old feels like, I think I’ll stay young forever.
At seven a small group of us went to visit the church and four of us stayed for Easter mass, my first Easter mass ever! I can’t really compare it to anything, since this was the third mass of my life, but it was nice. More praying and singing, and more crackers in the mouth. Us four girls were slightly distracted though because the man sitting in front on us get turning around and staring at us. This poor little boy was sitting next to him and getting stared at as well. He was terrified and clutching his dad’s arm the whole service. (We think he wasn’t completely right in the head.) One man even came up to us afterwards and said that he had been watching the guy the whole time, just in case, and that essentially, he had our backs.
Directly afterwards we went to dinner. Since we had finished eaten lunch around 5pm, I really was hungry. So, I dined on fruit – bananas and kiwis. Just after ten we got back to the albergue to find that it was locked up for the night: 10pm curfew. The camino schedule is very different from the rest of Spain. Whereas at home my mom wakes up on the weekends around 11am and goes to bed around 2am, here everyone’s asleep by 10 or 10:30 and out walking by 9am. Fortunately, I checked the back door and this was still unlocked, phew. Then, sleep.
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