Bom caminho! Today we were supposed to walk 31kms but my wikiloc says I did more than 33kms so I’m taking that!
We set off a little later than expected and looked for breakfast, which proved to be quite difficult in the small town of Alvaiázere on a Sunday morning! We did eventually find a bakery open but this meant we left later than expected.
Eventually we set off and it was not long before we ran into our first pilgrims - the German girl we met yesterday and a NZ lady from Auckland. We walked with them for several hours and enjoyed chatting and spending the time. The German girl was a marine biologist from the north of Germany and the NZ lady was a principal from Auckland. We also encountered some cyclists from Scotland and Canberra as well as a lady from Portland Oregon.
The route today was very pleasant. We walked through lots of enjoyable forest trails and enjoyed the more leisurely pace as we chatted with our companions. Arrived a bit later than we had hoped to Ansião and when we realised we still had some 20kms to cover to get to our albergue in Ribaçal, we decided to email ahead and let them know we would be a little late. "No problem", was the reply, so after a quick snack, we left the two girls and really put the pedal to the metal.
It was tough going but we really enjoyed the walk. When we arrived at our accomodation in Ribaçal - Hostel Bonito - it was quite late - coming on for 7pm easily - and the check in counter was part of a small restaurant which was heaving with pilgrims enjoying their dinner. In fact, we weren't really sure we were in the right place, but a pilgrim at a table waved to us as we looked in the window from outside, so we headed in and waited at the counter - the same line people were lining up at to order their food. When we asked to check in, the lady told us that the Albergue was absolutely, unequivocally, full. “But we have a reservation”, we protested. We told her that we had emailed ahead and had been assured that we had our private room that we had booked. Alas, no. That was apparently the manager (so you'd think they would be right) but turns out the manager hadn't told anyone else. When we didn't show they obviously gave our reservation away to another couple (turns out it was a couple travelling with a baby who we ran into again several other times on the trail). But there was absolutely no other albergue in Ribaçal, and the next town is at least another 10kms away.
I guess they took pity on us, and we ended up getting the last 2 beds - bunk beds in a dormitory - which we were a little dubious about as it is quite noisy, but there it is. Russell was absolutely horrified. The last 2 bunk beds were in a rather large dormitory as it turned out, and they were both top bunks. Russell struggled to clamber up into his bed, and all the storage space in the room was pretty much taken by other pilgrims, so it was a bit of a palaver to even know where to keep our gear. As for showering - well, he couldn't handle the unisex showers, where there was barely any room to hang your gear, let alone actually have enough breathing room to take a decent shower. He opted for the separate disabled shower instead. I sorted out what I could and had my shower, desperate to get cleaned up so we could quickly get some food - I was famished!
Once we were showered, we dumped our gear back in the dormitory and got chatting to a lady from Denmark - the lady on the bottom bunk to me. Ended up having a very enjoyable dinner with her, before heading to bed far too late for everyone else in our dorm, who had packed it in and were asleep when we arrived back. I expect they will be getting up at stupid o'clock tomorrow...
Given we had another 30km day ahead of us tomorrow, I gave up the idea of editing my daily video and crashed...
No comments:
Post a Comment