We’ve written about the pilgrim hostel in Valpromaro. These (above and below) are the two hospitaleri who took care of us and cooked our wonderful dinner and breakfast. Hospitaleri are the volunteers who run the hostels on the Via and the Camino. Volunteers come from all over, including the United States, to manage the hostels for a certain number of weeks. The man above is from Spain. He spoke a little English and, I think, pretty good Italian. He said he was going to be there two weeks in all. The man below is Italian and he apologetically said he only speaks Italian. All of us pilgrims were chatting away in English at the meals so I felt bad that they could not join in the whole conversation. We did ask them questions as best we could.
This hostel doesn’t charge a fee but takes donations. Pilgrims on the Camino in Spain know these as “donativo albergues”. Charlie and I decided to donate 10 each for the bed plus 15 each for the meals. The next morning we left fairly early. We were about a mile away, going up a steep hill, when we remembered we had not remembered to leave a donation. Oh dear! When we got to a high point where we had phone service I called the hostel and told the Spanish hospitalero our predicament. I said we’d like to mail the donation to him. He said he didn’t know where we should send it. He said “No problem. Next time you stay you can leave a bigger donation.” We felt bad but decided to continue on. We sure didn’t want to backtrack. Then, a few miles later, we were walking on a small paved road and the Italian hospitalero passed us in a car. He waved and then slowed down and then stopped to say hello to us. He said he was on his way into Lucca. (A long 11 mile walk by foot and a fast trip by car.) We told him about forgetting the donation and so we were able to give it to him to take back to the hostel.
