What´s worse than going uphill? Downhill.

Sparkling water from Galicia

10k, that´s how far I got today.  And, boy, howdy, the albergue where I´m staying (which is the only thing out in the middle of nothing but farm lands) came along just when I was certain I would not be able to take one more step.  In fact, I was praying mighty hard for the building around the curve to be an albergue and not a private residence.  I´m not sure what I would have done, I´m thinking it might have involved crying.

I know I said my pace would be slow, but I had NO idea!  Let´s just say it took the better part of the day to trudge the 10k.  I have not calculated the elevation gain, but it was a slow and steady uphill interspersed with a small number of downhills.  I had envisioned myself going a turtle´s pace; however, I think it´s more likely a SNAIL´s pace.  

So much time to spend thinking about anything, but to be honest, I spent the majority of the time concentrating on taking the next step, and counting those steps until I let myself stop and stand still for a brief moment.  This went on for five and a half hours.  You do the math.  The only record I´m establishing is that for being the slowest.  But I am carrying that pack, and even though I was trying to make it as light as possible, it´s still heavy.  

I had much opportunity to rue carrying that pack as many tens of people passed me by carrying only a little ditty bag, a small daypack, or nothing at all!  To them, I shouted in my mind, Show Off!  Of course, I have no earthly idea what the heck their story was.  Certainly a number of them were members of tour groups with luggage transport and other arrangements being made.  It still rankled to see those somewhat elderly folks flying by merrily shouting to me: Bonjour!  Rapidly disappearing down the trail as I went back to counting my steps and concentrating on right placement of my walking sticks.  (A bit of tongue in cheek here, just in case anyone is unable to discern that...)

Everyone in the Camino Pilgrim online group keeps saying the Camino will provide.  However, there has been quite a bit of hysteria in shares about availability of rooms/beds along the Camino since it´s become so popular.  (A little bitterness expressed by the veterans, it seems ... always able to find collectives where the newbies are scorned by the veterans.)  Anyway, I was wondering how it would play out since I didn´t make prior reservations - and good thing, too, because how could I calculate my pace correctly in Seattle?  I keep digressing, sorry.  Anyway, the albergue in Sarria last night, had two rooms of bunks, one with eight bunks, the other with 12.  So of the 20 bunks available, only 5 were taken.  So, as in many situations, the hysteria might have been unnecessary.

I should tell you that while last night´s albergue itself was a nice quiet place, that bunk room rocked with the sound of a thousand buzz saws!  We all snored.  The difference among the snorers was very interesting.  Even though I had ear plugs in, it was quite intense.  Although I immediately went to embarrassment, I had to remind myself that everyone else snored as well.  Working on that care of self thing.

Tonight I will be in a room by myself as all the beds in the bunk room were taken and I just could not walk another step let alone another couple of kilometers to get to another albergue.  I figure it´s another way the universe is taking care of me:  I´ll certainly sleep better given I´ll be the only occupant, and I´ve become accustomed to my snoring.  =)

I have some lovely photos, but I can´t upload them from this computer, and there is no wifi, so it´s a project for a future date.

TTFN