Hotting up - Day 8
February 13th, 2008 Posted in Spain, To Be A Pilgrim
I’m woken at five by other pilgrims blundering around the dormitory trying to pack their bags. They tried to be subtle by not switching the light on but were instead using a flash torch that could have doubled for use in a police siege. When we do finally get up and leave at half past seven we’re the only people left. Helen thinks she left her sunhat in a bar last night so I go in, asking for a lost hat in my very best, pre-prepared Spanish. The barman and his friend walk out of the bar and point at my own hat tied on my rucksack, saying ‘there it is!’ and roaring with laughter. I feel ridiculous but can’t think of the words to say that it’s Helen’s hat that I’m looking for.
We come to a memorial cross to a pilgrim who died on this spot a few years ago. There were two of these yesterday within a mile, with dates less than a month apart. This pilgrimage must be much more dangerous that it seems. Helen is still limping badly and it seems more likely that there’ll be a cross for us than that we’ll make the end of the year at the moment. Perhaps it’s these deaths that are behind the official ‘Pilgrims crossing’ warning signs for motorists on the roads round here. At one farmhouse we stop for a drink of lemonade and the farmer’s wife shows us into a barn where they’ve kept all the old family tools as a museum display.
We feast on bread and chorizo at the town of Palas de Rei, having mastered a new phrase: ‘eight slices please’. Buying fruit proved more problematic. As I casually fill a clear plastic bag with oranges, the shop assistant yells at me and hands me another bag. I’m totally baffled before realising it’s actually a glove. Bizarrely it’s illegal in Spain to touch fruit or vegetables in a shop with your bare hands.
In the afternoon the weather again begins to really boil. I manage another ten minute nap, this time dozing on top of a wall. Afterwards, it’s a real struggle to climb a hill in the late afternoon, but it’s worth it for the view ahead – the countryside is slowly becoming less intimate and wooded and more open and sweeping. Maybe it’s a sign that we’re leaving the rainiest part of Spain behind. Exhausted, we head down the other side to an isolated white building – an old schoolhouse now converted into a pilgrim hostel. There are no beds left, so we have to move the dining table and sleep on the kitchen floor. It’s not a comfortable place- the shower doesn’t have a curtain nor the bathroom a door so privacy is somewhat lacking.