Sarria to Santiago de Compostela (2nd – 7th May 2007)
I was glad when they said unto me: we shall go into the house of the Lord.
Our feet shall stand in thy gates: O Jerusalem.
Ps 121
In Sarria we discovered a novelty: te con leche. Tea with milk. Excellent, we thought; Anne had been missing proper tea. It turned out, however, not to be tea with milk, but tea made with milk: a cup of hot milk with a tea bag in it. I was never so glad of my taste for black coffee.
A pleasant, if rainy, morning’s walk along green lanes. The waymarkings now came at regular intervals: concrete pillars, about waist-height, telling you where, if anywhere, you were, and how far it was to Santiago. The count-down was beginning to get exciting.
Just outside Barbadelo I saw my first horreo, a kind of small barn elevated on legs to keep it out of reach of the rats. Local legend says that at night these buildings get up and wander around the countryside; but we were never out after dark to see them.
At Ferreiros, at the less-than-100km-to-go bar (why yes, of course there is one), we had lunch, and another first: tarta de Santiago. This is an almond mixture baked in a pastry case, with the viciously pointy Santiago cross stencilled onto the top in icing sugar. Delicious, but best eaten in very thin slices, if one were planning on moving anywhere after lunch, and after some debate we decided that we were.
It was another 9km to Portomarín, down the hill and across the reservoir. At the bottom of the reservoir lies the old town of Portomarín, all except the church, which was dismantled and moved stone by stone to the top of the hill before the valley was dammed and the water flowed in.
The albergue was modern and spacious, and looked out over the reservoir. There were few other pilgrims, and we lazed away the remainder of the afternoon, stocking up on supplies at the food shop, doing our washing and hanging it out to dry in the laundry at the far end of the albergue, and chatting to an American pilgrim by the name of Sarah. She had lost time with an injury, and would now be unable to walk the rest of the way to Santiago before her flight left.
The next morning, while we sat in the town square waiting for the translated church to open, she caught the bus. The church took its time; we went postcard shopping and said Matins before it opened, but it was worth the wait. A remarkable example of Romanesque architecture before the flooding, the move made it more remarkable still. The portal was another of Master Mateo’s works – not so impressive, we understood, as the Pórtico de la Gloria at Santiago cathedral, but still a fine work. On the top of the tower was a stork’s nest – more friends seen, without knowing it, for the last time.
The way out of Portomarín was a steep track through the woods. We took our time and discussed, for no obvious reason, Shakespeare’s propensity for resurrecting dead women in his plays. It took a while to find the albergue in Hospital de la Cruz, and found, when we did, that it was closed. We settled for lunch and went on another four or five kilometres to Ligonde. There we found a small but airy hostel with chickens scratching around outside and a grand total of two saucepans in the kitchen, one very large and one very small. No matter: they served our purpose.
At Ligonde, we met Jim and Daniel, an Irish father and son. Daniel must have been about ten, the youngest pilgrim we’d met. (The youngest we’d met to speak to, anyway; the noisy kids at Logroño didn’t really count.) Jim joined the ever-increasing band of people who were disappointed that I wasn’t Irish myself, with a name like that.
The next morning we made instant couscous in the very large saucepan, ate it, and set out upon the way. It soon became clear that the day’s walk would not be a pleasant one, for me at least: my period had started the night before, and the cramps were excruciating, worse than I’d ever had before or have had since. None the less, we decided to take a detour to take a look at (what else?) an interesting church: at Vilar de Donas, the church of El Salvador has rather fine wall-paintings and the effigies of knights of the Order of Santiago. Dan Brown would have had a field day, and Anne enjoyed herself, but I was in no state to look at anything. We trudged back towards the main camino. ‘I feel sick,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to be sick; it’s a different system, but I feel sick.’
We stopped for a drink and (more importantly) a rest in the bar at Portos, where the diversion rejoined the camino. About a minute after finishing my coffee, I was sick. Then, since the proprietor was evidently keen to shut up for the morning, we moved on.
Progress was slow. Since the only attitude that afforded me any relief was a kind of doubled-up foetal position, which is obviously difficult to adopt while walking, I spent much of the time seeking out and sitting on low walls. Anne shifted more and more of my gear over to her rucksack. Occasional passing pilgrims stopped and asked if there was anything they could do, but there wasn’t, really; we were in the middle of nowhere and the only thing was to press on.
According to the book it was 7.5km to Palas de Rei, and we must have covered most of that. Happily, however, a huge, shiny, new municipal albergue had been erected since its publication, a fair way before the town itself. Unhappily, it had not yet opened for the day; but by now we were both happy to sit on the bench outside and wait to be let in.
The doors opened at one o’clock. Anne saw me safely tucked up in (unusually for me) a lower bunk, before going out to town to find herself some lunch and other useful things. I slept for a good couple of hours, which improved matters greatly. Anne returned with food, some fearsome Bridget-Jones knickers, and the news that there was a small ferret-like creature hiding under the front desk. We looked, but there wasn’t much more to see than a pair of round eyes and a pointy nose; and neither of us is much good on mustelidae.
The showers were effective but singularly lacking in curtain, but at four hundred miles in I’d lost most of my modesty, and no one else came in, anyway. We had thought the kitchen utensil range at Ligonde narrow enough, but the mod cons at Palas de Rei were spectacularly useless. While it was fully equipped with stove, sink, etc, the only container of any description was a plastic colander. We ate bread with salmon pâté and raw carrots, then, since the kitchen was obviously not going to be of any use to anyone else, we commandeered it as an oratory and said Evensong.
By this time I was pretty much recovered and we went out for a wander. As we passed a kind of bar/restaurant in the park the Ely folkies hailed us: they were staying elsewhere in the town. We joined them for a drink and an ice cream; it made a satisfying end to a difficult day.
Back at the albergue, a further failing became clear, apart from the curtainless shower and the pan-less kitchen: the lights could not be switched off. Very odd. We went to bed anyway.
In the morning we were able to proceed as normal. It didn’t look as if we’d missed much by not staying in Palas de Rei itself, so we didn’t linger there, but pushed on through suburbs and villages, keeping a good pace as far as Liboreiro.
It was a good day for a walk, sunny but not too hot. At Furelos we visited the church of San Juan. The priest showed us the main point of interest: a crucifix in which Christ has only the left hand nailed to the cross. The right arm dangles, or reaches, down. I found it extraordinarily moving: Christ who bridges the gap between earth and God, Christ who is divine in weakness.
We also asked why Saint Roch has a dog, having wondered about this for a while, but the priest didn’t know.
Leaving Furelos, we ate our lunch on tree-trunk benches just outside Melide. In Melide itself we stopped off in a rather dingy bar for a drink. The guidebook recommended stopping for octopus, but we’d had enough of seafood after Sahagún, and pressed on, dodging around a wedding party. Past the 50km mark, now, we carried on and stopped in a lovely church in Boente. It was open and empty, so we took the opportunity to say Evening Prayer.
Another five kilometres, up and over a little ridge, and we stopped at the bottom of the valley. The albergue at Ribadiso do Baixo was just over the bridge, with buildings spread over a large compound. Plenty of washing lines, although something of a peg shortage, but we coped. Supper was back up the hill: spaghetti at Bar Manuel. Afterwards, we stood on the bridge and watched the fish jump. It was a gorgeous, still evening.
Next morning the lazy feeling persisted, and we dawdled as far as Arzúa. Now we were so near, it felt important not to rush things, to make the most of the last few days on the road. We stopped for breakfast, and I muddled the ordering of breakfast completely; my Spanish was still far from perfect. Still, we ate.
We ate again in Calle; while passing through the woods we met a man who recommended the tarta Santiago at a certain bar there. We followed his advice and partook of it; it was indeed excellent. I made a note of the brand for future reference. The next settlement was Salceda, where we had a boccadillo lunch and ice creams, and moved on again. The landscape had changed again: we were now walking through eucalyptus woods, tall twisting trunks and a mild fragrance reminiscent of snuffles. We halted by a spring in Santa Irene and said Evening Prayer in the afternoon sun.
The nearer we got to Santiago, the larger the albergues became. Or so it seemed. The one at Arca (or Pedrouzo, or O Pino – it appeared to have several names, and one more than the number of languages spoken in the area) was fairly massive. In early May it was by no means full, but there was still a good number of pilgrims around. There was a kitchen, which looked comparatively well-equipped, but we had no food and couldn’t be bothered, so went out to the restaurant in the village. This proved to be full for the moment, but also to have coin-operated internet machines, so we went online and rejoiced in the fact that –
tomorrow we would be in Santiago –
Then there was a table free, so we went through, and ate, and talked, and filled a few more pages of the pink notebook of deep thoughts.
Tomorrow we would be in Santiago.
We left early, breakfasting in a café up the road. The camino led through more of the eucalyptus forest. A drink in another café, where we met some more English pilgrims, Christians, but not, as I understood them, Roman Catholic. It would have been good to talk further, to compare notes, but we never saw them again. Onwards and upwards: Lavacolla, where ‘Santiago’ airport is. Closer and closer, but the camino snaked all over the place. Finally: Monte del Gozo (“Mountjoy!” cry Roland and Oliver). Monte del Gozo is supposed to be the first point from which one can see the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Of course, the trees have grown up, and one can’t. Instead, we inspected a vast sculpture set up to celebrate the Pope’s visit, and another, smaller, one of a pilgrim assessing the state of her feet.
Down the other side of Monte del Gozo, and into Santiago de Compostela itself. We entered through the suburb of San Lázaro, passing a great arch decorated with portraits of famous pilgrims. Remembering our earlier experiences entering cities, we decided to stop for lunch now, rather than pressing on hungry and grumpy. The Hotel San Lázaro had a long, narrow dining room, and entirely acceptable food – apart, as always, from the puddings.
As we walked, the suburbs gave way to the old city and the architecture became interesting. Jim and Daniel, our friends from Ligonde, caught up with us, to our great delight, and we walked through the old town and into the Plaza del Obradoiro together, to see the great facade of the cathedral rise up in front of us.
Kathleen Jowitt 