There was a Spanish group, three women and one man, with matching tee shirts that said, "Caminantes" and they were so noisy. They were constantly talking at full voice, not even concerned with the other people in the room. They did this last night after 10pm when the lights were out and people were sleeping and again this morning when the lights were still out and people were still sleeping. I'm sure they are nice people but they seemed to be so close knit that they aren't aware there are other people. I think this is a shame on the Camino, because if you don't talk to new people, don't even know they exist, you miss out on a lot. I'm glad I walk alone, because then I am like a free molecule and can attach at random.
Last night I sat with Mike and Marion, and a guy named James from Ontario, California. We had fun chatting about all manner of things and eating yummy food. Tonight they have a free mini bus to take us up the road to a restaurant for dinner. I think Mike, Marion, Jess, and I are all on the 6pm bus. For some reason we all ended up in the same little town in the same albergue. It's the municipal one. I passed one building in town that said it was an albergue, but in fact was a hotel charging 36€ for a single room. It was a challenge finding the albergue because it is at the very end of the town and there were a lot of places to stay between the beginning of town and end of town. The municipal albergue is 5€ and is really trippy. It's on the church grounds and consists of a semi circle of little bungalow type rooms with two beds in each bungalow. Then the bathrooms, showers, wash tubs and drying racks are at the middle or bottom of the semi circle.
Jess was telling me about when she was walking and all the arrows to the town were painted over or marked out. I asked her if it was Villa Mazarife, the town I wanted to stay in but couldn't get to. She said the reason the signs were painted over is because two of the albergues in town are under reconstruction so there are forty less beds which leaves only 7 beds. I would have been coming into town late and certainly would not have been there in time to get one of the beds. So once again the Camino took care of me.
Dinners was fun, filling and long. We were signed up for the 6pm dinner and didn't get any food until seven, and just got done at 8:30. There weren't any wine drinkers at our table and everyone was tired. I think that's why we all opted for the early dinner we had a young woman at our table who had gotten on her bike at her home in Amsterdam and is riding to Santiago. She's only got a couple of days left. It's about 2500 kilometers or about 1500 miles! We had my room mate too who is from Holland and a woman from Denmark. We all spoke English, so no one was left out.
I met a man who had a little bear on his back pack. I stopped and talked to him and took a picture. He said he got the bear in Santiago last year and the bear's name was Tiago, Gallego for Santiago. Mr Burple and Berry were very excited to see another bear.
I replaced my head lamp in Ponferrado, but forgot to take a picture of the knights Templar Castle or the church. Oh well, I have pictures from last year. I don't think they've changed much.
I saw two Perigrinos on horseback today. And then a guy who is walking the albergue with his donkey Tito showed up at the albergue. It must have been animal day on the Camino.
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