I went to bed last night with great intentions of getting up early and helping with breakfast. That didn’t happen. I blame the ambien which is the fault of the French cyclists.
When I did finally wake up, the whole albergue smelled delicious. Kathryn and her prep crew had a very productive morning that we all benefited from, plus a new Camino friend from Bilbao, Spain.
This is by far the best breakfast we have had. Eggs with tons of veggies, toast and jam, yogurt and fresh fruit. Delicious! Coffee cheers to the early risers!
The ones that weren’t involved in the preparation got to clean up.
Meet Estib from Bilbao. I met her the night before when I was hand washing my laundry. I was getting ready to use what I thought was a bottle of detergent left by the sink. She let me know it was fabric softener. My Spanish isn’t so good after all. She also introduced me to the best bar soap for hand washing I’ve ever used.
We saw her again at dinner, recognized her from the albergue and invited her to join us for breakfast the next day.
We made sandwiches out of the leftover bread, chicken and pork cutlers from last nights dinner and packed them away in our backpacks for lunch.
Kathryn is going to Bilbao after the Camino with her husband so Estib shared some great recommendations.
The Camino just keeps getting more beautiful each day on this route. So glad we continued on to The Camino Finisterre after Santiago this time.
Our snack break was at this rest area for pilgrims.
It had a foot bath that we could soak our feet in. No thanks. I’m not putting anything in that green slimy water. See the water coming out of the pipe on the back wall? There’s a sign that says it’s potable. Im usually one that will eat and drink anything, but not this time. I’ll pass.
I was so surprised by how many people stopped to fill their water bottles. They didn’t even hesitate at the green slime.
At this point, we had to decide between the traditional route or the alternative one that touts “no asphalt or traffic.” We obviously choose the alternate.
Later down the trail, we noticed this sweet lady standing at the entrance of this albergue.
Meet Vivi, the owner of this beautiful old farmhouse. She invited us in to “descansan y relajense” (rest and relax). She didn’t speak English, but made it very clear that she wanted us to make ourselves at home in her home. I explained to her in my best Spanish that we packed a lunch that we would eat on the Trail. She said she had a lovely area for us to enjoy our lunch and we didn’t need to buy anything.
We ordered soft drinks that were served by her son in law. And he brought us treats too.
Local olives and sardines! Not everyone loves this stuff but we do!
We even added some sardines to our sandwiches.
They even brought us complementary cookies for dessert. Albergue Vella is great. If we didn’t already have beds reserved in the next town, we would have stayed here. This place is a fantastically restored huge farm house with a couple bunk rooms, some twin rooms and a double room.
Only 51.927 kilometers to go!!
Lots of signage along the way: mostly kilometer markers and albergue posters.
Casa Pepa, our home for tonight, was full of pilgrims soaking up the sun when we arrived. Good thing we had beds reserved. They have been turning away pilgrims for the past several hours.
We checked in, claimed which bunk would belong to which pilgrim, showered and made ourselves at home. Gayle and I have been trading off and on with top and bottom bunk. Tonight is my turn for a top bunk.
It’s amazing how quickly we can settled into our bunks, skip showers and get to the albergue bar when there’s 5€ bottles of pilgrim’s wine waiting for us. Gayle’s not in the picture, she’s in the shower. Don’t judge.
We had lentil soup, more wine and went over the map and plans for the next stages.
I don’t want to leave anything out: Gayle joined us and got the award for best smelling American. And someone spilled her wine. On my map. I won’t say who.
Tomorrow’s forecast isn’t looking great. Days of walking in sunshine may be over. Looks like we’ll be trading sunblock in for rain gear.
Joette's Camino 
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