Camino bore, day 27: The tale of two mantillas.

Wed 26th May, Day 27, Portomarin to Palas de rei.
It's funny what you remember about journeys and places. Breakfast at the huge albergue in Portomarin was a strange affair; many people ordered orange juice, and this being Spain it was freshly-squelched, but they ought to have got some study of time and motion in to attend to the fact that for each person who requested it, the staff would get an orange out of a cupboard, carry it across the crowded place to a sqelcher, squelch it, go somewhere else for a glass to put it in, etc etc, you get the picture. Pilgrims are always anxious to get on the road before 7.30 or you fear no bed, so the oranges almost caused war, what with all the stepping over rucksacks and squeezing round pillars etc etc in a crowded dining place.

Albergue at Palas de rei

The dinner in Palas de Rei was notable in that mine included BOILED POTATOES (in capitals in the Caminella too) and not chips, and this was a real treat, as Spanish chips often seem to have had the potato middle cooked out of them. Brought up on thick Yorkshire chips, they don't hit the spot.

Pleasingly, when out looking for somewhere to eat we bumped into Juan Pablo, whom we'd not seen for days, and he told us that there was a mass on in the church at 8 pm, and that this church would do a stamp on our credencials; they stamped about 400 that day. So we ate the yummy dinner and sped up there, and while in church I mused on Psalm 24 and its 'lift up your heads O ye gates' that seemed to speak of Santiago to come. I meant to read The Psalms while I was away, but only managed Pss 23 and 24 in 30 days' walking. That's what being a pilgrim does for you. Next time, I plan to make it my main task, and that will mean going alone and having no-one to talk to.

Wildlife: the pilgrim-beetle.

In church that evening, I had one of those little meetings that you remember for life. There was this bunch of ladies who after the service approached me smilingly asking me to take their picture, them without a word of English and me without a word of Spanish, but plenty of sign language. But I got to love them straight away. They must have been in their 60s, and I suspect they were all having a much-prepared for week off to do the camino from Sarria and probably having their baggage carried for them by Jacotransista; the least you can do to get the Compstela. But the distance or the sweating with huge loads is not the point. They were not athletes, and  they were doing it in the proper pilgrim way, going to mass along the way and proudly having their picture taken in churches. They formed a contrast with two of my experiences. Firstly, they contrasted with some groups of young pilgrims who were much more able-bodied than them and yet did the minimum. Secondly, there was the mantilla thing; one of the things I took with me to cheer the spirits was a rather elegant black mantilla; when in Spain..., I thought, and I usually wore it to mass, a kind of equivalent of Sunday Best that was easily transported. This group of ladies pointed to it and smiled, and took my picture; which contrasted mightily with its reception at Najera, where a stern beige-clad Spanish woman with a severe haircut started talking to me in fast Spanish; my friendly me-no-understand-much-goodly-but-hello-anyway smile quickly wore off as it became apparent that I was annoying her in some way as she started jabbing at me with her finger, and D stepped in to help. Seems she didn't like my mantilla AT ALL, and D had to calm her down by saying in his best Spanish 'Please excuse my wife's mantilla; she's very old-fashioned'.

The porridge albergue.

And that led me on (I'm easily led) to thinking this morning that when we get to run our Porridge Albergue, we will allow and positively encourage the wearing of mantillas, though after my experiment at breakfast today we might need to put up a sign 'It is advisable to fold back your mantilla when eating porridge'. (Neither of these chaps is the vicar of Barton, by the way, the vicar was taking the pic as he doesn't in fact EAT porridge himself. I'm starting to worry about what we'll do if we have any porridge left over; it being Spain, we'll be able to lay it out in the sun to dry, and that will make slabs of fuel for winter perhaps). There were many signs along the camino that we've not yet seen in the UK such as 'It is forbidden to prick your blisters in this bar'. Somehow, when you're on the camino, everything seems normal, then you get back home and say 'Why didn't we get a photograph of THAT?' Truly, we are camino-ified.

The albergue at Palas de Rei is, well, plain isn't it? But it had beds. You've heard of Memoryfoam mattresses? Well these were of blue rubber and seemed to have Alzheimer's. I know, I'm not joking about that nasty complaint, just trying to tell you how solid the mattresses were, and they had disposable sheets as has become more common in Bedbugland. I heard the other day about a pilgrim who had to give up and go home as she had 167 bites on her face. BUT we still want to go back! Whoso beset him round......