Day: April 22, 2023

Post by Wynette: When we talk about prices here, we’ve been talking about Euros. I just checked and today a Euro is $1.11. Up a penny or two since we got here.

The thing about prices here is that when a price is quoted it includes all taxes, service charges, etc. So, an 80 euro hotel room costs us exactly 80 euros. And in the case of our hotel tonight, that also includes breakfast tomorrow morning.

In restaurants, again, quoted prices also include tax. And no one expects you to tip, although we often leave a little bit on the table.

So, even though Euros cost more than dollars, it always ends up seeming about the same as the US because of no added taxes and tips.

Post by Wynette:

We spent last night in O Porto de Espasante. We stayed there two nights in 2019 and fell in love with the town. The son in the family who own the hotel where we stayed (Las Palomas) told us that “everyone always comes back to Espasante.” He spoke excellent English and we enjoyed talking with him this morning at breakfast. He told us that only about 50 people live in Porto de Espasante permanently but in the summer it is mobbed. Many people from Madrid, etc. own apartments there and live there in the summer to get away from the heat. He said right now they have only 3 people working at the hotel (him, his mother, and one other person). He said in the summer they employ 15 people. He said one day, he walked 22 km (13 miles) just inside his restaurant serving people. (He tracked it with his phone.)

We had lunch at Os Vellos bar where we spent a lot of time at in 2019. What a pleasure to return. We ordered a cabbage soup and steamed mussels and pork ribs and were about to order something else when the server stopped us and said “don’t order anything else or you’ll have too much food.” Good thing we did. The servings were huge. Everything we ordered was more than enough for 2 people. We were expecting one person servings.

As we were walking out of town this morning, we saw about 20 memorials like those pictured below. Those weren’t there in 2019 so we think they are probably people in the village who died from covid. Spain was hit hard by the pandemic.

I stopped here where Wynette is standing because I saw three different colors of flowers.

Then I noticed another colored object. Wow, wild strawberries! We each enjoyed 4-5 of them. This area must get more sun or something because we kept looking and didn’t find any more.

Okay, I admit it, I go on and on about the bars. Walking into Ortigueira today we were tired and stopped at the first bar we saw for a coffee.

We were greeted by a hearty “Digame” (“talk to me” — more commonly said in answering the phone) from the friendly barkeep seen clearing our cups in this photo. There were women at the bar, as you can see, and a few couples like us.

We got cafe con leche in a glass this time, it varies. They also brought us some little cakes. We didn’t order them but always fun to get. Later he brought us some ham croquettes.

The decor in every bar is different. Notice the baseball bat on the wall.

It seemed to be just a little bar but notice the “comedor” sign. That leads to a dining room in the back. Often they are quite spacious.

While we were there the bread delivery woman came in with some bread for the comedor. It looked so good that a guy sitting at the bar wanted to get one and she went out to the truck and got one for him.

We passed 4-5 more bars in the next six blocks to our hotel.

Post by both of us:

Below is a Ruta sign that tells us that we’ll get to “el mejor banco del mundo” in 4 kilometers. So, the Ruta considers it “the best bench in the world.”

Google maps calls it “el banco mas bonito del mundo”, “the most beautiful bench in the world.” Not sure how it ended up with both names. But it is pretty great. Remote location. Nothing else there but the bench and a parking area. We’ve seen it twice and both times we’ve had to wait in line to get to it. Since we didn’t want the young couple ahead of us to feel rushed and since we got to sit on it in 2019, we decided to head on down the trail.

Here are two other photos we took of the young couple there.

We’re paying more today, this area is a bit more expensive (and maybe because it’s Saturday) but we got a great room. (It was 80 euros, which seemed like a lot since it’s about twice what we’ve been paying recently. But what a deal.) In hotels up to now, most of our rooms are small. Usually there is one chair, or none. Often we don’t have a table which makes blogging harder. But this one has five chairs including the very comfy ones in the photo above. And notice the cool ceiling. It has three rooms.

The manager who checked us in was so nice and helpful. Later we saw her on the street as we were coming back from the laundromat and she was excited to tell us that she and Wynette had the same birthday, which she had noted when filing our passport information. She is from Cuba and married a guy from Galicia and moved here 30 years ago. She spotted a neighbor in the street and called him over to take our photo.

We like empanadas. Here is a store devoted to them. Okay, full disclosure, they have cookies also and I stopped because they looked so good.

Spain seems to have “something-erias” for a wide range of things.

We talk a lot about Caminos here so I thought I’d write a brief introduction to what people mean by Camino and what we mean by Camino, which is a bit different.

Caminos are modern versions of a Christian pilgrimage route which was popular from about 1100 to about 1400. It started from your front door and ended in Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. Like all pilgrimages, it was a demonstration of, and a sacrifice for, your faith. Completing the pilgrimage earned you a half indulgence (see Google for details).

There are dozens of Camino routes in Spain but the most popular one is the Camino Frances, which goes about 500 miles from just across the Spanish border in France into northeast Spain and then to northwest Spain. Many people (about 25%) walk it for religious reasons and most of the rest for spiritual reasons. The Santiago Cathedral issues compostelas, a certificate recognizing your Camino and they collect a number of statistics including your reason for walking. You can go to their website and see those statistics.

The typical pilgrim walks 12-20 miles a day so it takes 35-45 days. Every 5-10 miles along the route you can find albergues to spend the night in. Albergues are $7-20 a night for which you get a bunk bed in a dorm housing 4-50 people, showers, and access to a kitchen. Many albergues offer group meals.

Walking: 15 miles in a day might sound daunting, and it can be hard, but this is not tough hiking like the Appalachian trail. There are cafe-bars every few miles where you can stop for a cafe con leche or a beer, sit down and socialize from a while, and have a snack. And you have all day.

Pilgrims carry backpacks with all their things in it. But remember you don’t need to carry a tent or cooking equipment or much food. This is not like wilderness backpacking. The rule of thumb is to carry no more that 10% of your weight. You only need 2-3 sets of clothes because you generally do laundry by hand every night.

Walking issues: it might sound like fitness would be an issue walking 15 miles a day but your body adapts. A far more common problem is blisters, the plague of all Camino pilgrims. The Camino forum is full of advice for dealing with blisters. Ankle, knee, and hip problems are also common.

Community: on the Frances you have thousands of pilgrims (typically 250,000 a year) walking the same path, going in the same direction, going to the same place, walking for roughly similar reasons, staying together in the same albergues, eating together, and stopping at the same places. This creates a strong sense of community. Almost half of the pilgrims are walking alone but they are not alone for long. People talk about their “Camino family” of pilgrims walking together and people can form lasting friendships on the Camino.

Variations: I described a “typical” pilgrim but there are so many variations. There are backpack transfer services so you only need to carry a light day pack. Some people walk shorter days, say 8-10 miles. There are numerous taxi services so if you get tired you can call a taxi to shorten your walk. Most albergues offer private rooms for a higher fee and there are lots of hotels along the way that are quite cheap. Many pilgrims do not walk the entire 500 miles but start at intermediate points. Many pilgrims take buses or trains over sections that they don’t want to walk.

Many Europeans who don’t have to travel far and who work full time walk two weeks a years and complete a Camino over 2-3 legs.

Wynette and Charlie Caminos: since our first Camino in 2013, we have evolved our own version. We walk short days, usually 5-10 miles. We generally walk for about 30 days and go about 200-250 miles. we have stayed in albergues 5-10 times over the years, but usually stay in hotels. As we get older, in future years, we plan to move to using backpack transfer services, more taxis, and even shorter days.

Our 2023 Camino: so far we are not walking on an official Camino at all (although that will change in about a week). We have been walking the Ruta de Cantabrico which is a path build by the Galician government. It does not have albergues or any pilgrim services. And it has very few long distance walkers, at least this time of year. We have not met anyone walking it this year. We walked it in 2019 and met one other couple who were walking it. But northern Spain is a big tourist area so there are plenty of hotels and restaurants. We’ll explain more about the Ruta itself later.