Today, we purposefully chose to walk the 25km alternative route, rather than the official 18km trail. We were gluttons, but not for punishment. We wanted the nicer trail and we were happy to have the extra mileage and more (but small!) hills. In the first 21km today, before the two trails combine for the final boring stretch along the main road, we had about 10km of forest dirt paths, 5.5km along side of main roads and 5.5km along very quiet back roads. We only saw one car on the single lane back roads so that counts as very quiet. The forest trails were louder in one spot but I’ll get to that later.
14 years ago, we knew a handful of pilgrims who took the Alternative path through Samos. Based on our non-scientific survey today, a majority of the pilgrims we spoke to,we saw turn left to Samos while leaving Triacastela (as opposed to turning right to San Xil then to Sarria) took the longer alternative. Other pilgrims – definitely not us – may have also been enticed to take the longer route because Samos had several great places to eat, drinks and use the toilets (all equally important). The shorter route didn’t seem to have any options for breaks except some vending machines at 10km and 14km.
As noted, we were able to get lovely trails today as well as a great (big) stamp in our credencials from the monastery in Samos. Other than that, nothing stood out as a story from the trail other than the mad biker. At one point on the trail, a local biker on a mountain bike whizzed past us. There was plenty of room for him to pass so it didn’t bother us but he shouted something in Spanish over his shoulder on his way to accost the next group of pilgrims. I scratched my head thinking what he was on about but Melanie used Google AI to do a deep RAM memory search in her brain to recall that we had exactly the same incident last year on that same st retch of trail. The crazy guy must just enjoy shouting incoherently at pilgrims. He wasn’t happy but no one knows why.
We have a nice room in Sarria in a private person’s investment house. So many people in this town have renovated old buildings and turned them into en-suite bedrooms for pilgrims. The rooms are set up to be efficient for both the pilgrim guests and the owner. The building we are in has six rooms so in the busy months of the Camino, he takes in €330 a night. His daily expenses include washing the towels and bed linens, cleaning to rooms, and refilling the soap dispensers. That’s a good investment…. or so I thought.
We just got back from dinner and I was amazed at how few pilgrims are here. 14 years ago, three years ago, even last year, this town was buzzing. Restaurants and bars up and down Calle Mayor (Main Street) were packed inside and on the street out front. Sarria was the first or second most popular starting place for pilgrims heading to Santiago because it was the nearest big town that was easy to get to but also more than 100km to Santiago. That was the minimum distance that you could walk to get a Compostela. The rules changed two seasons ago and now pilgrims can walk any section of any Camino route plus at least the last 20km (25km?) into Santiago with at least 100km in total. That may ruin Sarria.
FYI, we stopped in to say hello to the lovely lady who cooked us dinner last year. We really enjoyed her company but we needed a full menu tonight and she has only sandwiches, hamburgers, etc. we will see her for breakfast, I hope. We eventually had dinner with Argentine Vicky, Mexican Virginia and an Alaskan woman. We laughed in three languages all through the meal (I’m counting Melanie’s Indonesian even though she didn’t speak it once).
Goodnight and peace y’all.
We will see you soon George, Leo and Stella) ❤️❤️❤️
