I didn't leave Lugo until midday today. It's only a short hop down to Sarria, 30kms so I'm taking it easy on the road. Leaving town I made my way on foot theogh the old town before exiting through the Porta San Pedro and followed the rua San Pedro out of town to where the land drops down into an adjacent valley. From the edge of town you can see for miles across the valley towards mist shrouded mountains in the east that mark the border with the rovince of Castile y Leon. At the town of Betanzos I joined a brand new stretch of road with a lovley smoothe even surface. I struck out along this thinking I struck it lucky for the day when oncoming traffic started to beep their horns and waving at me to leave the road. It hadn't dawned on me that I was on a new motorway. Gingerly I pushed on and exited at the first junction I came to happy that I hadn't met any traffic cops. I wasn't eager to face a repeat of the fine I'd been given for doing the same thing in France some weeks ago.
Joining the older road to Sarria I took a leisurely pace through mostly flat lush pastureland that was very similar to home. Heading for a line of hills beyond which lay Sarria Iclimbe one decent ascent through the last 10kms which brought me to a point directly above the town . A rapid freewheel downhill and I made a bee-line for the town refugio that I had stayed in some 10 days earlier. It was a pleasure to arrive in a town and know where you are going. I was met and checked in by the same elderly man I had met on the previous occasion I had stayed there. He didn't recognise me at first but when he saw his stamp on my Camino passport from 10 days ago he did a double take and then smiled as he remembered me.
It was good to be back in Sarria. I really liked this refugio first time round and this time I would get to have a look around town. The old town really only consists of a single streets now, the rua Maior. This is the camino quarter of town, the area where all of the 'peregrinos' gravitate to this highest point in the town if they are staying overnight. All of the private refugios and cafes are located up here overlooking the new town situated on low ground at the foot of a hill.
Back in the refugio the place was filling up with walkers. The 14-bed dorm that I was in was fully occupied with a mix of Spanish, German, Korean and Portuguese. I was the lone cyclist. With the amount of oils, ointments and muscle rubs our dorm smelled like the dressing room of a football team. There were some sore, blistered feet on view this evening and some heavy limping by a couple of unfortunates. I was glad I wasn't suffering like that. Eating dinner down in the kitchen I was joined a Spanish lad and a German girl. The Spanish lad was from Zaragoza and had joined the Camino at Leon. He said he'd visited Ireland before. He had good English which he had learned in Ireland after spending four months working in bars in Dublin. His rendition of 'hows it goin bud' and 'deadly man' sounded authentic enough any way. At the end of his stint he had taken a 'Paddy wagon' tour around the country. He'd spent a week in the north and particlarly like a city called 'Londonderry'. I drew a blank on that one I must admit and asked him if that was anywhere near Derry? He smiled recognising the politico-cultural nuances of the Emerald Isle.
The German girl was having a lot of problems with a laser card that she was using. Spanish banks didn't appear to be akcknowledging her card as valid which meant she was having a lot of difficulty withdrawing cash. I told her of the attempted fraud that had resulted on my card and the difficulties I'd been having every time I needed cash. It turned out she had met the Irish lad I'd bumped into in Burgos. She actually knew him from a previous trip on the Camino some years ago. She hadn't arrange to meet the lad on this trip but merely happened to bump into him outside a cafe in one of the towns back towards Ponferrada. It turns out I just missed him today as he is staying the night in a refugio about 6kms up the road. A pity, it would have been interesting to meet this guy again. I recognise two other faces from the refugio in Burgos, two Korean girls so I reckon all of that contingent must be coming through this are now. I'll have to keep a look at on the road between here and Leon for some more familiar faces.
0 comments:
Post a Comment