Saturday May 25, 2019

Porriño to Redondela, Spain—Day 10; 26,379 steps

Proverbs 10

v. 1 The proverbs of Solomon:  A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son brings grief to his mother.  I don’t want to omit any of our sons but today we were thinking of Chris.  As we walked near a couple women we had passed back and forth with yesterday, I was chatting with one born in Pennsylvania who now lives in the south of Spain near where Chris used to live—in the town he used to live in, it turned out.  She was a civilian working for the Navy in Rota.  “What’s your son’s name?” she asked.  I told her.  “Krystle!” she shrieked.  She was friends with our daughter-in-law, and had also worked with Chris.  Such a small world. We are proud of Chris, making his way responsibly in the world, working hard, serving his country, leaving good impressions behind.  Lord, we thank you for three fine sons who bring us joy.

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We ate our breakfast on the terrace and were out at 8:30–but first we stopped at the bakery recommended by our albergue attendant, who said they give you two or three pieces of cake with your hot drink and will bag up what you don’t eat to take along.  Maurice had cafe con leche  and I had cacao, thicker than Portuguese soup.  Irish Michael was just leaving, so when we finished I put his abandoned cookie in the bag with my treats for later.

It was the usual sunny walk through little towns, past gardens and elevated grapevines, and in a couple hours we were at the popular Cafe Flora with its adjoining adorable shop catering to pilgrims, with lilting Galician flute music begging us to stay a while.  I restrained myself with the shopping, because one has to carry whatever one buys, but we each got a pin to put on our hats and new Camino-printed buffs.  Irish Michael was at the cafe too.  “She’s got your cookie,” Maurice told him, but fortunately he didn’t care because I think I’d already eaten it.

The Romanesque church across the road was in bad light for pictures and locked up tight.  Along the way again we saw horreos in various states of repair. 

We met Chris’ colleague from Rota Debra (mentioned above) and her husband James, who calls himself an International Man of Leisure, since Debra works on base and he is the dependent; Chris says James’ life includes a lot of motorcycling and surfing. 

The Way meandered through a forest at Saxamonde with tall trees and a broad soft path underfoot.  We found a cool stone wall in the shade for lunch.

Redondela was a reasonably-sized town and it took some walking to arrive at our albergue A Conserveira.  The bunks on our side were arranged in snug little quads with a locker for each bed.

One of our quadmates was German Marie, who told us about the worst job she ever had:  a Schatzi at the Oktoberfest, decorated head to toe with souvenirs that she had to sell. The bunks along the other side were in twos, given first-come, first-served to the earliest reservers.  Each bunk had a plug and a light. 

The showers had plenty of hot water but you had to press the button about every seven seconds to keep it coming.  We had a lovely dinner between the stone walls of O Consejo, a triangular building in a Y intersection of the old town. 

Our meal’s “tropical salad” had nuts and pineapple on top, the “chopped pork” was a delicious pork chop and dessert was the wonderful surprise of cheesecake.  As we ate Maurice spotted the Canadians outside trying to decipher the menu.  He went out to help, explained about pilgrim menus and soon Maurice was pointing out to our waiter that he was bringing in more customers for his business.  The kids looked fine; Mom looked tired.  We’re all getting tired.