You take the low road and I’ll take the high road
No room to swing a cat. There were six of us in an eight-bunk dorm: Rachel and I, an Austrian couple, and a Japanese man and a Barcelonian fellow who were traveling together having met on the Camino many years ago. At our end of the dorm, both upper and lower bunks were occupied, so we were forever bumping into each other.
Rach and I differed over whether the cover on the bed was a blanket or a bedspread.
Last night we ate at the Bar Real, where we had got the key for the albergue. Superb meal, lentil soup followed by an omelette.
We left at 8:15, after eating a bit of tasteless cheese on some stale bread. No bar was open this morning. It was fifteen kilometres to a coffee.
After crossing a very busy highway, we passed a bank of solar panels on the left, the first I have seen on this walk. They were much more common in the south along the Via de la Plata.
Suddenly, the husky we had met yesterday, darted out of the woods, investigated me, and then headed back into the woods towards town. Her master was nowhere in sight. A few minutes later he appeared, looking for his dog. I pointed in the direction she had gone. Later I learned that theyhad found each other. Fortunately!
Not a good idea to bring a dog on a walk like this, I thought. Dogs do not have the stamina for this kind of activity. They start out in the morning bursting with energy, and burn it off. But then they need to rest. Last night the two of them arrived at the bar while we were eating. He had had to stop for three hours in the afternoon while she slept.
We continued through the woods, and then along the highway, across a little bridge over the river, and then back into the woods,until at last we came out onto a broad plain with the little town of Valldestillas ahead of us.
The clock struck the twelve as we entered town.
We met the Austrian couple outside a café and enjoyed a farewell chat. They were going an extra six kilometres to avoid the albergue we were heading for, fearing another night in close confinement.
A long stroll out of this long and narrow town, up to the railway line, right along the highway, across the river over an old bridge or a new bridge, depending on which arrow you followed, and then north on the east bank into more pine trees.
No longer harvested for their oil, these pines were of a more stately variety, with tall trunks and a symmetrical globular canopy, the sort of trees children draw in their picture books, as we did in my childhood, although no gum tree ever had a circular outline. But that was what we saw in our English story books. Except for Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, of course.
We walked for seven kilometres along or beside the road, Rach down on the path in the gully, I on the edge of the road.
I can proudly say that I have walked every step of the way. I didn’t take the train across the bridge at Boo or the bus through the pass at Somport, or the metro out of the suburbs of a city, but I’m not above taking a shortcut.
As it turned out, there was plenty of room at the albergue. It’s a charming place with a live-in hospitalero. It’s a wooden shack, about 20 by 30 feet, the front half a kitchen and living room, the back half, three small bedrooms, two for pilgrims and one for the hospitalero. As you would expect, every wall was adorned with pilgrim paraphernalia.
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