Day 38 - Vilalba to A Pobra de Parga

Date: Monday July 22

Start:  Vilalba, Galicia

End: A Pobra de Parga, Galicia

Daily Mileage: 16.8mi (~27km)

Total Mileage: ~467mi (~751.6km)

Today we woke up a little stiff. Though I don’t typically shower in the morning when we are headed straight out to hike (and get dirty), I had to let a little warm water run over some of muscles to ease them into the day. 

Before breakfast, we walked off route a bit to visit the Torre los Andrade, a 15th-century octagonal-tower that was formerly the keep of a castle-fortress (with the oldest bits of the castle dating to the 11th century). Today the fine tower is part of a hotel, what all castles aspire to be when the grow up. 

Having viewed this fine piece of medieval architecture, we sauntered off to breakfast at a cafe up the street. Entering, we picked up a Spanish menu and decided what we wanted, approaching the bar to order. Here, the owner was also very exited to show us that he had an English menu as well. As I was ordering what I wanted from the Spanish menu, I took a quick glance at the English menu translation. The two entries for the same menu item:

Spanish Menu: 

NOA

Tosta de pan con crema de queso, jamón serrano, melocotón, AOVE, y chia. 

(FYI, this translates to: bread toast with cream cheese, serrano ham, peaches, olive oil, and chia seeds)

English Menu Translation:

NOA

Bread toast with tomato, garlic, and olive oil. 

Nailed it. 

What was listed on the Spanish menu sounded awesome. And I was sure that this was the correct menu, but I confirmed just to be sure. And so, I had a very tasty toast with ham and peaches. I’m sure there will be some words with whomever translated the English menu. Mistakes were made. 

It was definitely nice to have something a little different, as we’ve grown quite used to having Spanish tortilla for breakfast – or some sort of ham/cheese, egg/ham, or egg/bacon sandwich. Shawn ordered an “American breakfast”, which – based on the Spanish menu he thought would come as a sandwich with egg and bacon. What he actually got was a full plate of toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, and sausages (which were, in this case, basically hot dogs). Anyway. All good. 

Well fueled, we set out for our day. As of yesterday afternoon, our plan for today had been to go to Baamonde. However, once we ended up hiking further yesterday, Shawn found another hostel/hotel further down the route from Baamonde for tonight. Since we hadn’t yet paid for our accommodation there, it was easy to cancel and book the new place. 

We’ve also kicked the accommodation down the road (once again) for tomorrow night – which was made possible by our original accommodation contacting us to let us know that there was a glitch with their system, so they didn’t actually have a room available for us. At any rate, the TLDR: our overnight stops along the route through this section have very much been in flux. I think we finally have them set though. 

The morning was shockingly cool - in the mid-50s (12-15ºC), which seemed almost crazy considering it was forecast to climb into the 80s (26-30ºC) in the afternoon. In some of the shady sections setting out, we could see our breath. There were short stretches in the beginning where I would have been happy to have a thin pair of gloves. (I once did have a thin pair of gloves, another sacrifice of the melting).

The morning included a few shorter climbs and rollers, but overall, it would be a day mostly like yesterday afternoon – a lot of easy walking and country roads. A few more hills thrown in here and there. And a bit more pavement. But otherwise, a lot of rural roads and dirt paths. 

We saw a few pilgrims along the trail. A couple were frantic hiking, like they were late for something. I stepped aside as they came up behind me and hung back for a minute. Their pace was stressing me out. I was out for a stroll. 

A little before 1pm, we hiked into Baamonde. At just under 12 miles into our walk, what had originally been planned as an overnight stopping point for the day would now serve as a good spot for lunch. Walking down the street, we found an open cafe and ordered simple meals of milanesas, chips (small potato wedges), and salads. And agua con gas. Obvi. 

Now that we are within the last 100km to Santiago de Compostela, we must collect two stamps a day in our Pilgrim Credential booklet (mentioned in an earlier blog) in order to receive the Compostela, the document that certifies completion of the pilgrimage. We have been collecting stamps along the way at each of our accommodation stops as well as a few other places we’ve visited (like museums, cafes, or other special sites, when we remember) since Irún. Now that we are within the 100km homestretch, we need to remember to get the second stamp each day (generally one along the route between our nightly accommodations), which supposedly verifies that we have made the journey on foot to Santiago de Compostela.

It is laughable to us that this is a stipulation. Are there people out there who are ‘gaming the system’ to get a Compostela without the requisite 100km of walking to Santiago de Compostela? And is requiring two stamps a day (which you could still get taking a bus from one town to the next) really a deterrent to this scheming plot? Anyway, dems the rules. 

Personally, I enjoy seeing the different stamps. Some have really unique designs either related to the Camino de Santiago/Camino del Norte walk or to their business/site (or both). Though there are also plenty that are just boring ‘ole stamps with the name of the business/hotel. 

Some of my favorites so far: 

The Pilgrim’s Corner stamp (top left) from a cute little pilgrim’s cafe set up along the route on the day out of San Sebastián. And the Monastery stamp (bottom right), where we stayed one night the first week on the trail; this has thus far been the only monastery/church stamp we’ve collected thus far. While we did not love our bunkmates, the overall monastery experience was unique.

Hotel Gernika (top left) with the pilgrim silhouette, the Gernika Museum (top right) which was an interesting/worthwhile stop in Gernika, and the Pobeña albergue (bottom right), which was not an albergue experience that I loved, necessarily, though I like the stamp and there are still some good memories from our stop there – like meeting the laundry obsessor, which would later become ironic, with our own laundry fiasco. Maybe it was karma that I made fun of her laundry obsession and then we melted or shrunk half of our clothing.

The stamp from El Capricho de Gaudí (left), the Gaudí designed house in Comillas, (though the middle is a bit washed out), and the pilgrim on the shell stamp from our hotel in Unquera (right), though we don’t have a lot of good memories associated with Unquera since that is where we narrowly avoided burning a laundromat to the ground during our backpack barbecue.

I love the stamp on the left because (1) the design is so totally random – kind of looks like a weird spaceship or a lava lamp of some sort and (2) I found it in some random little wooden shelf set up along the trail, kind of in the middle of nowhere. I also like the cute little whale next to it, from a pension that we stand at in Gijón. 

This page has a few favorites. I love the stamp that has the typical Camino directional sign (top right), the tree (stamp was put on sideways) from the hotel/albergue we stayed at in Lourenzà (bottom left), and the dancing cakes from the bakery in Mondoñedo (bottom right).

Like a passport, I look at the stamps and remember the place that we stayed, or an interaction at the cafe, or some other special moment from that place. Or I think about something from that city or a person we met. It’s a fun little jaunt down Camino del Norte lane. 

At any rate, whether or not we are in need of lunch or any other stops, we basically need to make a stop somewhere en route each day now so we can get a stamp. So far, most of these have been restaurants/cafes for us, though they could also be collected at churches/monasteries (honestly, we have a hard time finding these open when we are passing through), tourist information offices, museums, or other sites. Most businesses along the Camino have a stamp. 

I actually went through a time in my childhood where I collected rubber stamps and ink pads. I knew how to do all the fancy gold embossing and other little tricks. I would use stamps to make Christmas and other holiday cards for people. I was very into random crafts for quite awhile. I still love to make greeting cards, though the stamp art has gone by the wayside. Now I’m more obsessed with paper stores and finding unique color/texture/patterned papers to use for card construction. Some I will hang onto for quite some time before finally finding an event/occasion/recipient that I think it would be perfect for. This I also do a bit less now that we live on the road and I can’t be carting around a bunch of paper, but I still pop into fine paper stores occasionally. Like a kid in a candy shop. Though none this pertains to the subject at hand, so back to the Camino... 

We find our hikers in Baamonde, during the heat of the day...

Having finished lunch, Shawn and I went down the street to the grocery store. We have a long stretch tomorrow with potentially few/no services, so we wanted to pick up some picnic stuffs since the next major town would be 15 miles from our start point. And, since we were there, it never hurts to grab a Maxibon ice cream bar. It’s hot out. And we’re putting in a lot of miles. 

On our way out of town, we made a quick stop by ... drumroll please... a very old chestnut tree. In the yard of the Romanesque Iglesia de Santiago de Baamonde, there is a centenary chestnut tree (more than 500 years old). As told on vivecamino.com: 

‘The centennial chestnut also attracts attention, and it is that it has the function of a chapel. In 1971 this tree was about to be felled, but the sculptor Víctor Corral carved an altar with an image of the Virgen del Rosario, patron saint of Baamonde, in the hollow inside the tree. Thanks to this, the tree was pardoned and consecrated as a chapel.’

After this short stop, we continued on our way. We had only about five more miles to our stop for the night, a casa rural outside the small town of A Pobra de Parga. Unfortunately, the first stretch of this was along a highway (I later read there was a longer alternate that avoided the highway, but we didn’t see any signposting for this). Luckily the stretch was fairly short and soon we were tucked into the shade and quiet of a nice forested road.

Leaving the highway, we crossed railroad tracks before passing by the Chapel de San Alberte, surrounded by moss covered trees and stone walls. Ahead of us, a couple of pilgrims were making their way up a short, rocky descent, one of them toting a bag behind him on a large cart with rugged trail-ready wheels. The cart had a small rope set up that attached to a belt that he wore. Interesting. Having been in an accident that makes me think about my back quite a bit, I wondered if he had a back issue that required him to use this solution. 

Having dipped back into the forest, we were back along shady paths. Shawn hiked on ahead. When I eventually caught up with the pilgrims with the cart, I struck up conversation. 

They were Madeline and Marc from Quebec. They’d started the Camino del Norte somewhere in France (I didn’t catch where exactly) on May 15 – a month before we’d started in Irún. They said they had gotten to Irún on June 21. I told them they were making better time than we were, having started there on June 15 – though while we’d taken 10 rest days along our journey, apparently they had not taken any full rest days. Just some partial days.

We walked along chatting. They’d also hike the Camino Frances in the past around the same time of year, which they said was much hotter. They asked if it was my husband that was up ahead. I told them yes, that he hiked faster than me. Madeline said that if she didn’t make her husband pull the cart with their baggage, her husband would also be far ahead of her. For his part, Marc seemed to understand our conversation for the most part, though I don’t think he spoke fluent English, as all of the conversation was with Madeline, who would then speak with Marc in French in between our bits of conversation.

I mentioned that Shawn had been born in Canada and had duel citizenship, something we sometimes joke about making use of depending on election outcomes. This led to the depressing topic of US politics. They had not yet heard that just yesterday Biden had dropped out and endorsed Kamala Harris, something they were very happy to learn. Aren’t we all. As Canadians always do, they told us we were welcome there.

Eventually I hiked ahead to catch up with Shawn. There wasn’t much distance left to cover to the casa rural, where the pilgrims from Quebec would also be staying, so we’d see them again soon. 

The casa rural was actually along an alternate. A few miles outside of Baamonde, there was a split in the Camino, with two possible route options to the town of Sobrado, ~20-25 miles from Baamonde depending on the route. 

The ‘official’ route was five miles longer, though had more services. The alternate was newer (at least more newly marked), and shorter, though had fewer services. We were unconcerned with the ’services’ part (having picked up picnic stuffs) and had decided to go ahead and take the alternate, obviously, as we had booked the casa rural along it. 

Also, I believe it was Robert Frost who said, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And I took the one that was shorter, with fewer services, and the very nice and well-rated casa rural.”

Can’t argue with that. 

Just up the road, we turned off the road at the sign for our casa rural. Walking down a narrow weedy path between crumbling abandoned buildings, the surroundings rich with a foreboding sense of general dilapidation and decay, we thought: we’ve made a mistake. (I think Robert Frost also said that). 

We’ve booked an abandoned building. 

Though a bit hesitant of the exterior, all of our fears were calmed the minute we walked inside, which was a beautiful space. A small dining area for the communal dinner and morning breakfast, a homey common space and garden, and bright colorful rooms. 

We were greeted by the lovely Isabel, who, after checking us in and confirming dinner and breakfast information, handed us our room key and left us to relax. 

While our room is great in general, what we appreciate the most is that there is a screen on the window. This seems simple enough, but not one accommodation we’ve had in Spain has had a screen on the window. This may not seem like a big deal, but – it’s been pretty hot out, and most places also do not have air conditioning. You kind of rely on the ability to open the window to get a nice cool breeze. Thus far, we’ve ended up having to close the windows after a bit because too many flies and mosquitos come in. You basically have to choose between bugs and a stifling room. And we really dislike mosquitos. 

In case you’re worried about our relationship status, there is far more availability of rooms with two twin beds. And, often if the choice is between one full bed or two twin beds, we’ll choose the later. The full beds are awfully small and Shawn pumps out heat like a radiator (no bueno with no AC).

At 7:30pm, we went downstairs for dinner, which was a communal meal. It seemed the two tables broke into mostly French speakers and mostly Spanish speakers. Luckily, we ended up at the Spanish speaking table. Though we have decent Spanish at this point – it’s always hard to dive into a conversation with native speakers unless you are personally pulled in, which we weren’t. So I listened to the conversations. Some of which I understood. Some of which I didn’t. But the rest of the table was perfectly happy to chat around us, which was fine. 

I was reminded of the Russian girl that we had met way back at the albergue in Guemes. She seemed to be at the end of her rope when I said hello. Each night at dinner the last several nights, she had been surrounded by only native Spanish speakers. She understood that she was in Spain, but was still frustrated. “They make no effort to include you in the conversation.” 

In fact, with unspoken context, but perfectly understood, Shawn turned to me at dinner and said “We never did see that Russian girl again.” 

Shawn and I did not expect anyone to speak English for us. Or with us. It would seem to be polite to try and engage in conversation in Spanish though. The traditional icebreaker for travelers: “De donde eres?” Where are you from? 

To just try to jump into their conversation without an invite or opening would have been hard though. And so we didn’t. We just listened. And enjoyed the dinner, which included a fresh salad, a delicious chickpea and mushroom stew, and a pudding type of dessert that had some sort of coffee liquor-esque flavor. My unsophisticated palate could not determine exactly what, though.

After dinner, we wished everyone buenos noches and went to relax in the common space. After sunset, everyone retired to their rooms.

Tomorrow we have a long day of ~22 miles. With a high of 88ºF (31ºC), we plan to head out a little earlier than our normal departure time – which means its time for bed.