October 10, 2022
- Route: Abadin to Vilalba
- Distance: 21.1 kilometers (13 miles)
- Cumulative Distance: 722.4 kilometers
I had a positively easy day planned today. The mountains separating Spain’s northern coast from the interior of Galicia were now behind me, and I was walking my shortest day on the Camino yet (if you exclude my zero back in Llanes).
Today’s mileage was a meager 21 kilometers, which was only about two-thirds of what I normally try to walk. And that meant I’d remain in the bubble of ‘new’ pilgrims for at least another day’s time.
If it had been 100% within my control, it would have been nice to walk 10 kilometers further. But that distance wasn’t feasible because there just wasn’t anything to support it. I could either stop after 21 kilometers in the moderately large town of Vilalba or I needed to pull a 40-kilometer day and walk to Baamonde – as that was the next town with any albergues or services.
Given the modest terrain I was currently walking in, I probably could have made the full 40 kilometers. But I’d promised myself that I was going to dial it back and savor this final week on the Camino. Besides, it was supposed to rain all day today, so I caved to convenience and made my albergue reservation for Vilalba.
With such a short distance to walk today, I didn’t even worry about what time I got started. Leaving before sunrise was completely unnecessary and it might even be counter-productive. I couldn’t check into the albergue until 2 p.m. So why race out of town early this morning??
Another wet day
It was lightly raining when I departed around 8:35 a.m., and the inclement weather was supposed to continue in fits and spurts all day long. The pilgrims around me donned ponchos and rain gear under the eave of a building, and I eventually departed the albergue suited up in my rain jacket and my rain pants.
Walking just 26 kilometers yesterday put me right on pace with the pilgrims following their pre-planned stages in the guidebooks. So I had to work my way through the same bubble of slow moving people I’d passed once already.
I recognized several of the same pilgrims from yesterday morning. There was the short, squat woman who constantly cleared her throat every 15 seconds. The tall man who swung his hiking poles wildly from side to side. The young couple bickering with each other in Italian.
About half an hour in the morning, the rain picked up for a bit. Then it slowed to a thick drizzle as a low fog settled over countryside.
The Camino’s terrain seemed to repeatedly switch back and forth. Sometimes I was on quiet paved lanes, and other times I found myself walking through muddy, puddle-covered trails. The only constant was the moisture in the air.
Eventually the sleeves of my rain jacket clung to my arms like I was wrapped in a layer of plastic Saran Wrap. The outside was wet from the rain, while the inside was saturated with my sweat from the effort of walking on this humid morning.
I could hear the fast moving cars driving on the Autovia off to my left. But the fog obscured any views I might have of the motorway until I neared the pedestrian bridge that crossed over it, only to cross back under it in less than a kilometer later.
Ten kilometers into my morning, I spotted a large yellow sign announcing there was a cafe just 100 meters down a side road. Yesssss! It was time for my mid-morning coffee. Time to get out of the rain for a bit.
The inside of the cafe was tiny. There were only three tables, all of which were occupied on my arrival. A group of pilgrims was at one table enjoying their breakfast, while their wet backpacks sat lined up against the entry wall and on a low bench. I appreciated that they didn’t want to leave their bags dry from the elements, but there was barely any space left to move with them all piled there.
Rather than wait for a table to free up, I sidled up to the bar and ordered a hot coffee to warm me up. As I sat waiting for it to be delivered, two older local men wandered in and sat on either side of me, then the proprietor wordlessly poured them each a few fingers of them some sort to brown liquor (at 10 a.m.)!!!
Twenty minutes later, the cafe became even more crowded as the horde of pilgrims I’d already passed this morning arrived at the cafe too. That was my signal get moving and head back into the rain.
Heading to Vilalba
After my coffee break, it was mostly gentle walking through the wet Galician countryside. I caught up to Nicki (the German medical student from a few days ago) walking with a redheaded Dutch guy who’d stayed at the same albergue as me last night.
The rain was transitioning to a light mist now, and the air temperature was finally warming up a bit. So I took chance. I stripped off my rain pants about 7 kilometers before I got to Vilalba, figuring what’s the worst that could happen?
If the rain returned, I could stop under a tree to put my pants back on. Or I could show up to the albergue with wet shorts. Neither option was worth continuing to sweat inside my thin nylon rain pants.
As noon approached, my stomach was grumbling with a fervor. My mid morning snack of a carrot and three cookies was no longer holding me over. (Hey, don’t judge me. At least I ate the carrot, and wasn’t running on 100% sugar.)
I spotted the municipal albergue on the outskirts of Vilalba, but there were no cafes or stores nearby. I’d have to walk three or four kilometers into Vilalba was nothing to look at but the side of the rural highway.
The one interesting outlier on this dull walk was a green metal pedestrian bridge near a roundabout. It took me over one of the busier roads instead of forcing me to leap across busy traffic like a game of Frogger.
Unfortunately, the metal bridge was so long enough that span over the roadway seemed to bounce with every step I took (or whenever a whoosh of air from a large freight truck drove under it). The experience had my heart racing the until I was safely back on solid ground.
Are you open?
Vilalba would turn out to be the biggest city I’d been in since departing Ribadeo three days ago. Restaurants, cafes, and vinotecas (wine bars) lined the city’s main boulevard, and road construction made the scene feel even more chaotic.
I’d scouted out my potential eating options on the internet at the albergue last night and bookmarked two options that sounded really good for a late lunch. One was a pizza joint and the other was a American-style hamburger restaurant that served plant-based Impossible burgers.
I kept my eyes peeled for the pizza restaurant, but still walked right past it and got an extra 100 meters down the road before I realized my mistake. I swung back around to retrace my steps (looking like a lost pilgrim, I’m sure), but when I arrived at the correct spot, their door was closed.
A sign reading “Cerrado” hung on the glass, and below it, the hours were posted saying and it was supposed to open at 1 p.m. I glanced at my watch. It was ten minutes past 1 p.m. already. They should be open. But the side said ‘closed’ and the shades were still drawn too. Had they gone out of business?
I stood there debating my options while looking up directions to other restaurant. I’d give the pizza place just a few more minutes, then I was moving on to plan B.
At a quarter after 1 p.m., the door quickly opened, then it immediately shut again! Ok, people were definitely inside. I gave it two more minutes, and then an employee came out and propped the door open for real.
Sweet! They were open for lunch. Better late than never. Clearly they were just operating on Spanish time. Or perhaps it just didn’t make any sense to open earlier, because I was their sole customer for the next hour as I devoured half a cinco queso pizza and drank a draft Estrella Galicia beer.
WHAT DO YOU EAT?
On my way to the albergue, I stopped to take photos of the Parador Hotel, which was a newer hotel built onto the refurbished remains of an old castle tower. A shade of cornflower blue was starting to emerge into the sky above the castle, and the sun is doing its level best to provide a bit of bright afternoon warmth.
Even with my leisurely lunch I was still to my albergue by 2:30 p.m. This seemed to be such a luxury to walk to town after such a modest distance. I’d had time to sightsee and just wandered around town instead of immediately tending to my town chores and resting.
Was this easy, breezy life what it was like for people who only walked 20 kilometers per day on the Camino? The pilgrims who took six weeks to enjoy their walk to Santiago, and who probably never got a single blister or tight calf muscles brought on by longer, hard days of walking?
It made me wonder if I could I trade my more intense, physical Camino for their more relaxed vacation pace?
Probably not. Even if I had all the time in the world, I truly enjoy ending the day feeling tired. I loved the bigger miles and seeing as many things as possible in a day. I didn’t see the Camino as a walking holiday, but rather as one more adventure where I pushed myself to see what was physically possible.
After cleaning up, I headed out to a nearby grocery to get some for tomorrow’s walk and a salad to supplement my leftover pizza for this evening’s dinner. This albergue had a kitchen, and the majority of the pilgrims decided to stay in for the night and cook dinner.
No one made a big communal meal, it was just a number of smaller group meals instead. Nonetheless, mMy leftover pizza and salad boring by comparison to most of these pilgrims.
There was the trio pilgrims (of assorted nationalities) who made themselves a multi-course meal consisting of a giant salad, shrimp cooked in garlic and butter, bread, and flan. It smelled divine!
Then two different couples took turns boiling up pots of water to cook pre-made tortellini and ravioli paired a red sauce and their vegetable of choice.
An older Spanish woman enjoyed a weirdly eclectic meal. She started with a container of marinated artichokes, which she topped with copious amount of mayo. Then she pan-fried herself a hamburger, before slathering a half a cup of ketchup atop it. From here forward, I’ll probably always think of her as “the condiment queen.”
And there there was a younger German woman made herself a giant portion of pasta with a cream sauce and sautéed vegetables. But then she put half of it in a plastic container that she was going to carry ahead and eat for lunch tomorrow. So I nicknamed her “leftovers.”
Of course, given the fact that there was only a three-burner stovetop and one sink in the kitchen, everyone had to cook these meals and their wash their dishes in shifts. But the albergue was simply humming with activity and good energy.
