Casteñada to Amenal – 28.5km, 6.75 hours, Hotel Amenal, don’t ask

Today we didn’t have a walk, we had a long, hard, slog. We had trouble finding accommodations for last night and tonight so we are in non-tradicional stopping points. Last night we were about 400m off the Camino in an old but lovely guest house. There were two other pilgrims staying there and the next closest pilgrims were sleeping at least 2km away. Tonight we are staying at a small but ridiculously expensive hotel which is right on the Camino. We have actually stopped at their cafe twice before for some breakfast in 2012 and 2017. It is perfectly located for a cafe but an odd place for a hotel. The result of all this means that yesterday was a normal length walk, today was longer than usual and tomorrow, to Santiago, will be a relatively short day. The longest day turned out to be the hottest, sunniest, least shady day too. That’s our luck sometimes.

The start to the day was also less than ideal. We had breakfast at the guesthouse which saves us from an early stop but also took longer than a normal breakfast. We weren’t out the door until 7:45am but we were rewarded with a nice setting moon. The hostess from last night also insisted on showing us a shortcut back to the Camino through the forest behind her house. I tried to explain that I knew the best route back to the Camino but, as I said, she insisted. We followed her off her property, into the forest, then she turned to us, rattled off the directions in Spanish, then returned home. We tried to follow what we though she said but it really didn’t look promising. I kicked myself for listening to her as I studied the map and knew the shortest way. After some wandering around, we crossed a field and went my way which I am certain was the route that would have saved us mileage. Unfortunately, we wasted about 700m trying to follow her route first.

The only advantage to our disastrous start was that we walked almost hour before we saw another pilgrim. We had the trail to ourself. Also, the first pilgrim we saw was Long Hair, the Hungarian man we met in Orisson. We have seen him many times and is the last long distance pilgrim we know that we have seen somewhat regularly. Speaking of long distance friends,we just heard from Maja. Her legándose flu have only worsened so she is flying home tonight from Santiago. That is certainly sad news. We will miss her.

One pleasant piece of serendipity happened in the small hamlet called Lengüelle. It was there that we were just behind a large group of pilgrims who were playing loud music to accompany themselves. They turned to follow the Camino trail down a small thin descent. It was a bottleneck and I wanted no part of it. I checked my GPS and found an alternative route over the nearby stream and I grabbed Melanie and told her to follow me. We walked along quiet roads through the village, across a stone bridge over the stream and then…. we bumped into the two Uruguayan women, Maria and Not Maria.(I should note that these are the two lovely, crazy women we had dinner with last night. I see that in yesterday’s blog – through spellcheck and a lack of proofreading – they were referred to as “the two toadies from aura guay that we saw leaving Ponferrada”. That wasn’t accurate). Anyway, these two toadies stopped in Lengüelle to visit with the grandmother of a friend of Maria’s. Grandmom happened to be walking them over to see the ducks in the stream when we passed by. Maria introduced us to Grandmom who rushed over to give us a hug and a couple of kisses. We were family. She was a little upset that we had already seen the ducks but she forgave us. THe next time we are in Lengüelle ,we have a place to stay. By the way, Grandmom almost disowned us when Melanie told her “Los patos están en mi mochila”.

As noted, the sun was relentless today. The photos may show the beautiful trails in the forest but that is only because the majority of trails in the bright sunshine sapped the energy out of me to take a photo. The highlight of the day was when we stopped in mm. Mmm. Mm m mm m m m mm m m.because we were struggling. We needed some fuel. While we sat drinking some isotonic drinks, my son called. He was driving George and Leo to daycare. George was loudly counting off all the school busses he saw and there are a lot of school buses in that part of the state at morning rush hour. And if you didn’t know already, the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round…..

Random thoughts from the walk…. My phone counted 42,534 steps today, 161 floors of stairs climbed and 211 floors down. I beat my goal. In Arzúa, I was still thinking about how our slow start lead to a virtually lonely trail. I spoke too soon though because just as we entered town, two tour busses dumped out about 100 touragrinos right in front of us at the Arzúa sign. Most just wanted to have their photo taken next to the Arzúa sign, then half got back on the bus. The rest were giving it a try. When we got to our hotel in A Menal and finished our chores, we went down to the hotel terrace bar for a drink. There we found a rather large group of pilgrims congratulating each other about completing the long stage. They walked about 25km from Arzúa today but they did admit that yesterday was a rest day and they had started in Sarria. As soon as they cheered in the last of their group to arrive, they got on the bus and were taken back to their luxury hotel in Santiago. They will bus back tomorrow to do the last stage. Full credit to them. Well, at least 12.5% credit to them.

It’s late and I wonder what spelling / grammar errors I have that will go viral on social media. Feel free to bust me. Peace y’all. Goodnight George & Leo. Don’t let the bedbugs bite. They have germs and are yucky!