I left town along a long and winding street which eventually became a long and winding road. Streets are never straight in the oldest part of an old town because they were not planned. Ancient roads met, and dwellings cropped up along the meeting places. These were replaced by more modern buildings, side by side, fronting the road, straight in themselves, but each at an angle to the one next to it to follow the curve in the street, which itself followed the course of the ancient road.
A few kilometres on I came upon a ruined castle, much more evocative than the restored building I had visited yesterday in town.
This was a wild and romantic place. In the wind I could hear the howls of the marauding infidels, of one stamp or another, for there is some doubt as to who occupied these castles. The only inhabitants now were a pair of nesting storks, perched atop the ruined tower, encircled by a fluttering black bird, looking for their leavings.
I walked on. This has been very different from any Camino I have walked before. Towns are far apart without frequent villages and hamlets in between. I miss the beckoning church spires in the distance which welcome me to the next village where I might find a cup of coffee.
The road dipped from time to time into concrete fords across one or two of which water was flowing and I was thankful for my leather boots.
I am wearing Grisport boots this year, $180 at Costco. They don't seem to have a special name in Canada, other than backpacking boots, but in the UK they are called Crusader boots. Not the most sensitive of names in an ethnically diverse country.
Eventually, after passing an ugly concrete church, and an ugly meat processing plant which offered free water for pilgrims, I arrived at a highway to find a huge petrol station complete with restaurant and cafeteria serving motorists from the adjacent autoroute.
In the cafeteria, a long line of staff, clad in red and black livery, served their clients, two deep at the bar. A deafening noise after the tranquillity of the lonely road where only two cars had passed me all morning. I sought a quiet corner, only to be surrounded by a party of marauding school children.
After an indifferent tortilla, onto which I managed to spill my coffee, I ventured out into the rain. I doffed my down jacket (a mistake as it turned out), donned my poncho, and walked eight or nine kilometres along a minor road into Monasterio.
Last night at supper after a few glasses of wine and a brandy, one of our group asked each one of us what pissed us off. I was tempted to say, people who can't tell the difference between lying and laying, but refrained out of politeness. Now I can tell you what really pisses me off!
I arrived at Monesterio and looked for the albergue municipal. I had heard it was run by Canadians and wanted to meet them. I followed the signs off the Main Street, left and right and left again, nice new signs, placed at each turn, clearly indicating the way to the hostel. The rain steadily increased and I was bitterly cold. At last I arrived. "Closed since November," said the sign. Now that really pisses me off! Why couldn't the municipality take down the signs or indicate that their albergue was closed?
I suspected that I had been seeking the wrong albergue, but cold, wet, and miserable, I wasn't about to go off on another wild goose chase, and took the nearest option, at the beginning of town, the Hotel Moyà, which offered pilgrims a demi-pension for 25€. Not a bad deal, but that didn't include heat until the evening. It was nine degrees in Monasterio, a drop of 20 degrees from our first day. I was shivering, literally literally, suffering from a touch of hypothermia, I think, so I climbed in a bed heavily laden with blankets, and hugged myself for two hours to get warm.
I complained to the host, who was apologetic, and assured me that the central air system was working. This blew air through a couple of vents high in the wall of the room, enough to keep the pipes from freezing. He explained that at the pilgrim's tariff he simply couldn't afford the electricity for the individual room heater. I accepted this, for it was a fair explanation, but I was still cold. He took pity on me, and turned on my heat two hours earlly, at seven o'clock.
Heat was an issue at another hostel as well, where John and Steffan and two German ladies had checked in. Apparently, the heating system was broken, but the proprietor offered them individual radiators for their rooms, and demanded two euros each! After a minor battle, they managed to get their money back, and eventually found the "Canadian" hostel, where there was no Canadian.
Bathrooms on the Camino have their idiosyncrasies. At the Hotel Moyà, the shower was on its fitting on the wall, so I didn't have to adopt my one-armed gorilla stance, but the water flowed alternately hot and cold, so I was forever adjusting the tap. The toilet leaned alarmingly, and actually moved across the floor, so I proceeded with caution.
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