Trabadelo, Day 29

We woke up early today. Partly because we wanted to beat the heat and partly because we had a roommate of whom sounded not unlike a chainsaw when snoring. We had packed up the night before, so we slid out the door and got walking.

We walked about 10 km until we stopped for breakfast. The next part of the trail we had the option to choose between two paths. One route took us along the road, and one went up into the hills, but was a few kilometers longer. We were tired and chose to take the road. It turned out to be very entertaining however, because there was some sort of road bicycle race taking place. They were riding the opposite direction, but they yelled an occasional “buen camino!!” which made me smile. In the very least, it was something to watch as we walked.

Around lunch time, we made it to Villafranca del Bierzo and sat down to rest our feet. Neither of us were very hungry in that moment, but we decided to sip some orange juice and watch the local run going on in town (it seemed like quite the day for racing!). Once we were ready, we carried on.

The rest of the walk that day was very boring. It was along a highway that was very busy and we walked along a narrow path. Because it was hard to talk, we resorted to our headphones to use music as inspiration to keep walking.

As we walked into town, we began to look for the municipal albergue that we had planned to stay in. As we wandered through town, however, a different albergue just up above the river caught our eyes. It was only 5€ to stay, but it was very cute looking. It had a modern yet rustic look to it. We decided to stop in and see if they had any beds left for the day. We were greeted by a friendly couple. The woman that originally started the albergue was from Australia and the man was from Spain. There were only 12 beds in this albergue, but they had 2 left for us, and so we decided to stay. They also had a dinner that they provided for the pilgrims and so we decided to opt for that as well.

When dinner time rolled around, all of the other pilgrims in our albergue emerged to sit at one big table. We had gone down to the river to soak our feet, and others had busied themselves with laundry, napping or simply resting. As we sat around the table, conversation seemed easy. Everyone chatted away, until the food arrived, you could tell that everyone was hungry. The dinner that we had was simply incredible!! We started off with a vegetable salad of sorts that consisted of chickpeas, pine nuts, bread crumbs, spinach, olive oil and roasted cauliflower. Then, we had pasta that had been mixed with roasted peppers and many spices and herbs that were grown in their garden out back. To finish it all off, we had homemade orange sherbet. We were both absolutely stuffed, but so very satisfied.

As we all sat on the verge of a food coma, the woman who ran the albergue began to explain how it had come to be. She had done the Camino many years ago, and she continued on hiking all different kinds of Camino’s for 6 months. When she returned to Australia, she knew she wanted to keep the Camino in her life, so she sold her flower shop and began to look for property. Once she attained the location, there was still a lot of renovations to do. The end product was amazing though, and it reminded me of something that you might see on fixer upper! In all, we went to bed happy and satisfied with a night of talking to great people!