Can I just apologise for all the typos and upside down pictures!!! I’m just trying to keep you all on your toes and of course I have resigned from being a technical genius.
Isnt it always the way, I was whisked off track and although it was amazing in a simple beautiful way, I couldn’t meet up with friends and had to eat there regardless of choice.
It was dark but the village was lit and off I trot past the dizzying huge bridge and cross a smaller one . As I leave the village, it is SO dark but the stars in the sky were stunning. I can see Orion…the Hunter..he is my guard and the narrow path takes me deep into woodland. When I say deep, I mean deep. The huge trees were tall and ominous and for the first time I felt really scared. I practically ran through there wondering when it would end. It felt like there was just me and the sound of my breathing and another woodland world where you shouldn’t pass by. After nothing for 8K, a bar looms up. Phew, Brilliant so I grab an orange juice and a stamp for my ‘credential’…and hear this,
”Hola, Christmas Carol”…Its Diane who always leaves at 6.30 am.
”How did you get here so fast?” I’m a bit hurt really, as though I have cheated somehow. But I have walked every step.
”OH you go ahead she says as I have my feet to sort out”
I set off, praying for no more deep woodland…its getting light, and thinking of things I didn’t say to her..as you do. My answer had been that I walked here..stupid answer…I should have said that I ‘ran’ through that darn forest.
Anyhow, as light becomes a beautiful morning, much warmer than the cold mists of yesterday, I stop again and hour and a half later.
Diane steams in. She is like a pocket rocket so we travel together. Before me is something like a sylvan scene, a picture from an English countryside but when I see a large cypress tree, sitting underneath it is definitely and elderly peasant Spanish man…taking in the sun.
I think the worst part of the day is when we stopped and took in a bar and I chat about my bites. I say that I have been bitten. Oh My God!! Diane streams out with…
”They are bed bug bites, do they burrow under your skin…do you want me to check your back..I’m so Mad and its not me..you must ring the company!”
I go really quiet, I feel so dirty and attacked. I couldn’t remember if these things lived on you..I’m so quiet Diane asks me if I am ok.
“Yes,”…but she replies and says I know you are upset, you must report this. It is like everything in life, it takes me a while to process everything…I am spraying and creaming myself…and spraying the beds…but its not enough. So I decide to get into this pre-paid taxi and demand to go to a Pharmacy first…Primero..farmacia…eventually he sees my resolve and he did. I can’t speak, I don’t know what to say to the chemist so after 40 euros, I buy a fabric and household debugger, an antiseptic spray and a cream for bites. I have to spray and leave the room for 3 hours. My head is in a spin…what next..?
Remember I get back into the taxi with a strange man and we head off more than five miles from the camino..into the lonely country. Life suddenly seems more like survival than walking through those woods. I get there, its deserted. Its old, the lady takes me upstairs Yes the room is lovely…it has a corner bath but I don’t care because there is no-one else there. I would not be able to meet up with the little Santiago gang who were all enjoying wine together in the town. Deep down I am distressed
It is a long day, registered as 24K but they ask you to add another 4K because of the inclines. It felt like it so by the time we descend into Palas de Rei we are both shatttered.
This time my voucher read that I was to stay 8K away in a remote country farmhouse and that I would be picked up by a paid for taxi if I rang when I got to Hotel Cabana.
I cant think straight. I am in the middle of some woods with a taxi driver, i’m Clutching my pharmacy bag and figuring out wether to spray first, wash everything first…nightmare. Worst of all when I do all that…which I did, I stagger over to the dining room. There are no other restaurants to go to…No Menu de Dia…..68!!! EUROS!!!!Yes it was fine dining but fo gods sake….I’m a PILGRIM….
I ring the company and say to them, please do not talk back to me. I would like you to record this and listen…I’m beside myself…..They change my accommodation for the following day that is out of town again!!!!