2023 WynChar Camino

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.

Booking.com is widely used in Spain for making hotel reservations. On previous trips we avoided using it and preferred to call the hotels directly assuming it was cheaper for them. But calling has not been as successful this trip. Often the phones are not answered or you can’t even find a phone number. My guess is that the hotels find it cheaper to not assign any staff to taking reservations. So we have mostly been using booking.com.

In O Barqueiro we used booking.com and when we got there the reservation was written in longhand in a book. I guess they copy the information from the computer into the book.

The hotels in the northern part of Galicia have kind of an old charm. The wood in the windows and on the stairwells is beautiful. They have unique, bespoke decorations in the public areas.

The Barqueiro hotel was €40 a night. I don’t see how they can survive charging so little.

Post by Wynette:

Yesterday on our crazy walk into Bares, I spotted this at my feet:

I’m sure you can guess what I thought it was. But it looked kind of dry so I poked it with my pole and it didn’t budge. I looked at it more carefully and finally realized it was a mushroom. I called Charlie over. We spotted another clump.

I wondered if they could be truffles. But Charlie said “Aren’t truffles usually under the soil?”

Have you ever seen mushrooms like these?

Later that evening I looked to see what Google Lens could tell me about them. It pointed me to an article about Horse Dung Fungus which says they are not-yet-ripe puff balls. I found out that it is called Bohemian Truffle in Europe, but it is inedible. Evidently they are amazing on the inside according to a Scientific American article I found about them.

Post by Wynette:

When we order fried eggs, we also order toast (“tostadas”) with butter and jam. Invariably, they’ll first bring out the eggs with a side of cold bread. Then a few minutes later, they’ll bring out the toast. We are amused and mystified by this.

If you would like to see more photos (not really expected!), Charlie and Wynette have each created a Google album of favorite photos. If you should dive in, you may note that some of them have already been posted on the blog. We each chose our favorites separately, but we found there is quite a bit of overlap.

We’ll continue to add to the album so if you should return to it at a later date, you’ll see the new additions.

Here are Wynette’s favorites: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qkqeeHWVWRvdM4Ks6

Here are Charlie’s favorites: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Saiq9ECDerYGoNSE7

I keep posting about the bars in Spain because I like them so much. Each one is unique because there are no chains. My fear is that some private equity firm will start buying them up and cutting costs to increase profits.

But how does a small business like a bar buy all the things they need to operate? The traditional way to do this is middlemen, salesmen who sell, say, soft drinks. They go around to a lot of bars and take soft drink orders. And another one for coffee, and another one beer, etc. They know the people at each bar, and ask about their kids and carry new jokes from place to place.

The guy on the right in this photo is, we think, a middleman.

Here he is having a coffee and chatting. Later we saw him and the bar owner looking over some papers that looked like an order.

Such people used to be common in the US but I think they are disappearing, replaced by more efficient methods of keeping stock.

One of the things we like about Spain is that in some ways it is like the US was 50 years ago. Not in all ways for sure, in most ways Spain is a very modern country.

It is a matter of opinion whether the changes are good or bad and we can’t change them back in any case but we like to experience the old ways for a few weeks every year.