A (Spanish) woman´s work is never done!
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2008
1
13
27
Trip End
Jun 05, 2008
Palas de Rei to Melide (A Coruña Province),
Spain
Monday, May 12, 2008
An easy 15K day
Dear family and friends,
We are beginning the countdown to our final town, our goal Santiago de Compostela (Thursday). I asked Len how he feels about his Camino experience soon ending, since he has been at it since April 3. A mixture, he said, of sadness and of anticipation of things to come. The Camino offers a style of life never before experienced by us and hard to imagine if one doesn´t don his own boots! We will all savour what we take from it.
Our destination today is Melide, of pre-Roman origin. This is where the French way (Camino francés, the Camino we are on) joins the Northern coastal route that goes along through the Basque country, Cantábrica and Asturia
Do you have any hand wash to do?
. The time passes slower today as we head into a much less interesting part of Spain--newer, more commercial, with fewer photo ops. That is, until I met Kristof, a young Hungarian with 3 years of college (philosophy), traveling with his girlfriend. However, they have separated for a few days while she takes it easy on a sore leg. In the meantime he hikes up to 45 K a day (he´s young), trying to make time and be frugal. In fact one night he and his girlfriend arrived in a town too late for a bed at the local albergue (they close by 10pm) and simply put their sleeping bags down on the floor of a house under construction! Kristof filled me in on the poor economic situation in Hungary in spite of their belonging to the E.U. Unfortunately, it hasn´t benefitted them at all. Many of his friends have multiple degrees and no job. Kristof has taken another approach to life--work hard for a year, then travel for a year, and think about life while traveling.
We approach a Medieval Roman bridge (the second of the day) and Kristof´s good eyes spot a woman doing her wash in the river! As Catania would say, "Cool". I am certain the woman doing the wash would describe it differently. She is leaning into the river, her knees on a wooden support, while she scrubs and scrubs, running a bar of soap over the garment now and then, and then into the river to rinse. I would guess that she might be a part of a dying generation. We are on the outskirts of the village, in the old, interesting part. Another neighbor was already hanging her laundry to dry (while Spaniards have dryers, most hang their wash out), while a third was hoeing her garden. I wonder about their husbands: Dead? Working? In the city square passing the time with the other local men? At the bar drinking and chatting up their friends? It´s hard to know
Follow this sign to the local hostal
. By the way, wine isn´t considered an alcoholic drink as it is in the U.S., but just another beverage to be enjoyed at all times of the day and night. I´ll drink to that!Okay, time to talk about a few interesting pilgrims we have seen. Today it was an older woman toting her belongings in a backpack on wheels. It made so much noise on the stones that it drove the other pilgrims a bit loco! Then the two Swedes, a mother and daughter. The mother is at least 75 years old and a brisk walker. We discovered what propels them when we stopped for our second breakfast along the trail: They always have a beer, no matter the time of day. Ciao, Dick and Sue
