How is it that on a Sunday in a large City in Spain, I can get a Burger King from noon until half past midnight, but nowhere is open to sell me a set of headphones or a Pharmacist to sell me foot balm or Vaseline? I struggle between thinking that limited Sunday trading is extremely civilised on the one hand, and utterly impractical and harmful to the economy on the other, especially in a city teeming with tourists with cashola to spend. Anyway, still no new headphones.
There are very few ways to spin “bland, the same and utterly uninteresting”, so this one will be short.
Just over 32km today, of placing one foot after the other, still paralleling the road. I walked alone the entire way. Again. No wonder some of the less purist guidebooks say you might want to take a bus if you’re “time-constrained”. Polite-speak for “It’s mind-numbingly boring. Give it a miss. Take the bus. Maybe don’t tell anyone.” It is tempting, but I wasn’t tempted. My limited grasp of Spanish renders it easier to walk the damn thing than to try and arrange for a taxi over the phone.
Wunderground’s weather app tells me that the temperature is only 27ºC, and I admit that it feels a little nippy, requiring more than the Nike wife-beater I’ve been wearing. Fleece may be called for.
I bumped into Nancy again. She got here about 1430. She’s staying in what appears to be a much more elegant albergue, the Albergue San Miguel, BUT… she doesn’t have a pool or the massage I have scheduled at 1845, albeit for only 45 minutes. Yin and Yang.
I’m off to soak my legs in the baby pool…
…which became an inadvertently-surreal experience in Spanish Apartheid. I bought a beer to use the pool. I didn’t want a beer, I merely thought it was a supportive, economic gesture. I finished my beer and went to walk across the grass to the pool (30 feet away) and a local with the dress-sense and finger-nail cleanliness of a sanitation-worker, whom I’d noted had been eating like a savage, stopped me. He was polite, if unclean.
Long story short, you can only walk across to the pool via the grass directly from the bar if you are a resident (owner-occupier vs CHAV would be a lost semantic). Well, of course! Obvious! Otherwise, you need to go in via the other entrance. Rather strange as the bar is part of the albergue where I’m berthing. The same albergue that advertises free access to the pool, presumably with your room key as proof of residence. Presumably NOT!
You need to go back to the bar to get an official, ayuntamiento-issued temporary piscina-pass to get entry. I was somewhere between amused, bemused and livid. I let it pass. Pilgrims do that because we are loving, forgiving, serene beings…
Before I entered the pool I explained to the attendant that all I wanted to do was stick my feet and lower legs in. Cool them after my hike. No full shower. No swim. No pee-pee in pool. I would shower them first, and was that all right? I needed to get a grip on these dogmatic local customs as I was, after-all, the kaffir.
He nodded.
Good, good. Progress.
I also explained, smiling and in my best English, that as this was a vanishing edge pool, it was highly probable that the water would meet with my unshowered testicles, and would that also be alright ?
He nodded.
I am dipping as I write.
What a palaver, but perhaps evidence of some of the inefficiency still embedded within the red tape and the system, and not confined to Spain.
I’m by-passing the next big town of Astorga, and heading straight for Rabanal del Camino. I was going to stay at an Albergue there run by the UK-based, Cofraternity of St James, the Gaucelmo, but Maurice thinks he may have picked up bed-bugs there. Personal hygiene/safety trumps sovereign allegiance. There’s a Benedictine Monastery that might be a wheeze, if they’re indeed open and accept ‘infidels’ such as myself. I’ll do some research on the ‘inter-webs’…
So, tomorrow will be nearer 36km as I again truncate three days into two. That’s a long way for these short, old legs. Early to bed. Sadly, I expect it will be much of the same as today.
I’m told it improves.
You’ll be the next to know…
Dear Des
The PP Bullseye made my day. Do they make one for sitters? No that was no misspelled., although I had to poop on a paper plate for a fecal test. Adds new meaning to passing a test. Although I do not understand the need to test oneself, I admire your stubborn dignity on this journey. I hear they have a great one to Mecca where you get to crawl for half the trip. Just a passing thought young man. Keep those feet in between the lines.
B