Roughing it in Ribadiso

With two more days behind us and just two more left to go, I find myself having one last true Camino pilgrim experience - staying in one of the oldest remaining pilgrim hostels still in existence. The stone dormitories, stone outbuildings with cool showers, and the massive stone fireplace in the common room, all compliment the medieval stone bridge that leads to its door.  It's idyllic and rustic.  We've been seeking peace from the large groups that are traveling this last bit of the Camino, and we have found it here in Ribadiso.  The lack of wifi and hot water pretty much guarantees an absence of teenage groups.  At this point on the journey, many people (like us) are craving creature comforts that have been hard to come by on the trail.  I'm having my own fantasies about sheets, food, and sweet smelling towels.

As I took a cool shower in the stone outbuilding under a pathetic trickle of water (for which I had to push a button every 8 seconds in order to keep it flowing), I tried to remember to be grateful for this experience.  Then, when I got out of the shower and discovered that a swallow in the rafters had pooped on my towel, I decided that grateful is overrated.  It's bad enough that I have been using the same postage stamp-sized, rancid-smelling chamois to dry off with for the last 30 days.  It did not need to be accessorized with bird poo. This pilgrim needs to get to Santiago stat.

The good news is that we've had a couple of relatively easy days on the trail.  Yesterday's walk from Portomarin to Palas de Rei was completely unremarkable except for the "Pizzeria" road sign that greeted us upon our arrival in Palas de Rei.  It was a very official looking municipal-type sign, which we took to mean that they were serious about their pizza in this town.  We were pretty serious about finding that pizza, so, as soon as we had checked into a hostel, we set off to find it.  Apparently the owner of the bar serving toaster-oven frozen pizzas must be related to the mayor of Palas de Rei. Lesson learned. When in Spain, do not expect gourmet pizza. Stick to the paella.

Today's walk from Palas de Rei to Ribadiso was more scenic and more removed from the road.  We walked on forest paths and through small villages along the way. The trail is still a constant stream of pilgrims as we get closer to Santiago.  Today, July 25th, is St. James Day, so there is a large celebration at the cathedral in Santiago.  As we ate lunch in a bar, we watched the royals arriving at the cathedral on TV, and we anticipated our own arrival in a couple of days.  We scanned the crowds on the  television in search of people we had met along the way who were aiming for today's festivities in Santiago.  The glimpses of the cathedral and its surrounding square were a useful reality check.  It turns out that the cathedral is presently completely covered by scaffolding and looks more like an angular Chinese temple than the cathedral that we had anticipated. The kids and I had a good laugh, because this seems to be a theme for us when we visit famous sites.  A few years ago, we sat for hours in the dark and cold waiting for the sun to rise over Angkor Wat.  When it finally peeked over the horizon, and we got our first glimpse of this wonder, it was covered in scaffolding and green netting. We just shook our heads and reminded ourselves that the Eiffel Tower had been scaffolding-free just a month ago when we visited, so we had probably already used up our monument luck for this trip.

So, tonight we find ourselves in this medieval hostel with time to relax, reflect, and play in the frigid water of the river.  In a flashback to a mid-Camino moment, we are down to our last 38 Euros with no bank to be found in this ancient outpost.  There is one restaurant (the one attached to the hostel) with a pilgrim menu for 9.50. Four meals for exactly 38.00.  I think it was meant to be.  Tomorrow we will carry on to what will be our final night on the trail before reaching Santiago. Tonight I'll be trying hard to soak up the last bits of the Camino experience while praying hard that there is no evil swallow above my bunk.