Thirty Seventh Day On The Camino Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Today was a milestone day. Yep, you are reading that Camino marker correctly. We are now only 100 kilometers from Santiago!

One hundred kilometers sounds like a lot of kilometers, especially if you are walking up and down hills carrying a 25 pound backpack 🎒. But we have walked 700 kilometers from the beginning of this journey in St. Jean, so 100 kilometers doesn’t sound like much more than a stroll in the park on a beautiful Fall day.

We left the alburgue this morning at 7:45 AM. The sun doesn’t come up until 8:45 AM but I wanted to get an early start and get into Portomarin early in the afternoon and relax and have a cold beer🍺.

The minute we walked out of the alburgue we were enveloped by swirling fog so thick that between the fog and the darkness it was almost impossible to see the yellow arrows that mark the Way. A couple of guys from the alburgue were walking ahead of us with high powered head lamps and we followed them, hoping that they would not lead us astray. The sun finally peeked up over the horizon at about 8:45 AM but the fog stayed with us until almost 11:00 AM.

Here are a few shots of the countryside we passed through this morning.

This is a wonderful donativo cafe where we had an early lunch. The cafe was located in the courtyard of a beautiful set of farm buildings and the food was phenomenal. All the food was homemade with natural ingredients. It was one of the best lunches I have had on the Camino. What a nice break from the now dreaded jamon bocadillos, or ham sandwichs. I had seconds, thirds and fourths and left 10 bucks in the donativo basket and told Abe to keep his pie hole shut. I told him that I did not want to hear a word from him about the size of my donation!

These are old grain storage bins, called horrios. Every farm has one of these. They are elevated off the ground to keep mice, rats and other vermin out of the grain. It doesn’t look like they could store more than a couple hundred bushels of corn 🌽 in one of these things.

Apparently they celebrate Halloween 🎃 in Spain.

I did not know they had Texas Longhorn cattle in Spain.

Notice the madras shorts and the sparkly tassels on this guy’s hiking poles. No doubt he is a 100 kilometer Pilgrim fresh from one of the fancy hotels in Sarria.

This is the approach to Portomarin.

This is Portomarin.

This is the river on which Portomarin is located.

After we crossed the bridge over this river we had to climb a long flight of stairs to get to the town of Portomarin.

You have got to be kidding me! I just walked 20 kilometers with a 25 pound backpack 🎒 on my back and you are going to make me climb this set of stairs to get to the alburgue! Come on you wiley Spaniards. Give a poor, tired, hungry and thirsty Pilgrim a break at the end of a long day. Put in an elevator or an escalator. Is that asking too much?

This is the view from the alburgue.

When we checked in Abe and St. Christopher found out the alburgue has private rooms. They begged me to get one so I decided to humor them and splurge on a 40 euro private room.

This is our bed with a real mattress and real sheets

This is our very own shower with clean towels and those little bottles of shampoo and conditioner.

Abe and St. Christopher are so excited to be staying in this deluxe alburgue room. To borrow a line from my father, the three amigos will be farting through silk tonight!

It is laundry day today.

And that is where the trouble began. These are the washing machines at the alburgue.

The guy who checked us into the alburgue showed me the washing machines and told me that I had to go to the bar/cafe in the alburgue and buy a Spanish version of a Tide Pod from Javier, the bartender, to wash my clothes.

So I went to the bar and in my best Spanish I asked Javier for some laundry 🧺 jabon, which is the Spanish word for soap. This is Javier

After I asked Javier for the laundry 🧺 jabon he smiled and nodded his head and went back into the kitchen. After about five minutes he came out and proudly put a jamon, or ham in English, sandwich on the bar in front of me. I told him I wanted jabon not jamon. He kept nodding his head and saying Si Si, or yes yes, and pointing to the hams he had hanging behind the bar.

At this point I got really frustrated. I tore off my shirt, grabbed the ham sandwich and using the top of the bar as an improvised washboard I demonstrated to him that you can’t wash clothes with a ham or jamon sandwich, you needed jabon, or soap. He still didn’t get it. So I took the ham sandwich and Javier into the washroom and tried to wash my hands with the ham sandwich. I clearly demonstrated that you can’t wash your hands with a ham or jamon sandwich, you needed jabon, or soap. Finally I got through to Javier and he gave me a Tide Pod to wash my clothes and let me keep the now badly tattered ham sandwich, gratis. Nobody ever said that the Camino would be easy.

It is Anna’s birthday today. Happy birthday Anna. Anna is back in the hospital today getting another chemo treatment. If you have a spare prayer, please say one for Anna.

I hope everyone had a great Wednesday.

Good evening from Portomarin, Spain.