Day 36: Casa Nova to Arzúa
Part 1: The road to Ribadiso
I slept from 7:30 p.m. until the early risers departed Casa Nova at 5:30 a.m. I slept in the clothes I walked in yesterday, didn’t shower, and didn’t care. But I needed to pee, and nearly wet my Macabi skirt while sliding my feet across tile floors enroute to the toilets.
Roosters broke the foggy morning silence, as Andrew and I set out in the damp fog. We could have/should have taken a moody picture of the trees along the Camino shrouded in the thick waves of mist, but neither of us cared to reach outside of the warm cocoons we’d made for ourselves from scarves to reach for our iphones. Sometimes, you gotta use your imagination!
First café con leche stop: Melide and wifi.
The walk to this point was mostly lovely, and far too pastoral and boring to blog about. What happened past Melide is the stuff of blog material.
Like the tv shows featuring two idiots on a quest, Andrew and I actually repeated the words, “Today will be a short day.” Didn’t Einstein say the definition of insanity was repeating a process and expecting a different result? He must have walked the Camino during the Spanish Vacation. I’d like to know what he did differently.
Destination: Castañeda. An in-between stage. (yup) Won’t be busy. (nope) Albergues with beds. (nope)
After bombing out at the albergue, we walked to a pensión offering two small beds in a small room with bath for 39 Euros. I may have been exhausted, but I’m frugal. We walked on.
Maybe ten metres later we approached a farm with a messy yard strewn with farm implements. A bare-chested, middle-aged man worked in his garden. Yes girls, he sweated. Andrew walked on ahead, always ahead, and past the sweaty, bare-chested farmer with John Lennon shades and dark curly hair with strands of grey. But the smaller details were harder to notice.
As I dragged on behind, Farmer Sean looked up and noticed me. I was staring, but mostly because he resembled an old high-school buddy of my ex-husband. So Farmer Sean, who resembled Paul B., left his yard and walked alongside me. 
“Hello!” he said.
“Hola,” I responded, not even realizing that he did speak to me in lovely English-accented English. 
We shared the usual small talk about the unusual heat and our destination. Andrew walked back toward me when he realized his wife was no longer bringing up the rear (or looking at his rear) any longer. He peered at me over my backpack, which he dutifully carried on his chest since Sarria. I introduced my husband, and stared at the Camino Frances route tattoo on Sean’s right side. 
“If Ribadiso is full, you have a place here.” Sean waved to the back of his grand farmhouse. I hoped he meant inside and not camped out back. We thanked him and continued on. 
We did regret not taking him up on his offer, given what awaited us.
Part 2: Ribadiso Completo
“Wait for me at the bridge.” I watched Andrew walk away with our packs in the heat towards Ribadiso. I was alone, but not quite alone, on a path between corn fields, and within shouting distance of a church choir from Notre Dame. They spread out over a kilometre, prayed regularly, and walked musically from Sarria. We tried to avoid them; they took up space in the albergues. But I couldn’t out walk them. Their priest in white robes and hiking sandals, and the two white robed nuns in hiking boots, kept the choir on a slow but rigid schedule of walking, praying, and eating. And as several police cruisers moved down a path not intended for cars, I was happy for the Notre Dame group’s presence.
I arrived at a highway bridge. It was not the bridge Andrew remembered or wanted me to wait at, and fortunately I was uncomfortable waiting there. So I moved forward until my right knee felt electric. In the distance I recognized Italian Heidi sitting on a rock waiting for her friends somewhere behind me.
“Can I offer you an ice pack?” Heidi pulled a plastic package from her backpack, cracked it, and ahhhhh, instant relief for my knee. We were soon joined by British Liam, a Taiwanese guy with traditional Taiwanese hat, and Heidi’s two friends. Then Andrew moved glumly towards us, carrying cold drinks and no backpacks. He made a cut throat motion with his hand. NO beds in Ribadiso, which was still two kilometres ahead. 
“The hospitalera booked us two beds about two kilometres past Ribadiso, in Arzúa.” 
DO THE MATH. At least four more kilometres to walk for a bed, and we had to make up time in case they gave them away.
We collected our bags in Ribadiso after two dispirited kilometres, thanked the hospitalera for her help, and made it to Arzúa. That blessed huge five floor albergue had an elevator! Rachela, the girl who gave up her bottom bunk in Casa Nova, and her two friends heard I’d scored a bed, and came to welcome me. I saw only Sylvia again during the pilgrims’ mass in Santiago.
Neither Andrew nor I wanted to give much credibility to the so-called bed race, but it is a reality during Spanish Vacation, and a problem for the injured. I can rise and shine at 5:00 a.m., but the Notre Dame choir, or various Boy Scout groups, or school groups, or summer camp groups will arrive before us. And although the Xuntas cannot be reserved, the large groups arrive quickly and take the first-come first-served bunks, leaving the injured (often the long-haulers) to continue walking through injury, or sleep outside. Of course, options include taxiing ahead to a place and taxiing back the next morning to where you left off, but that also adds euros to the cost of your night.
At our lowest point, I scouted a place outside in the corner of a field I thought we could spend the night. 
“How about there?” I asked.
“Too much toilet paper,” Andrew answered.
Another truth about the Camino: if you find a place sheltered enough to sleep, someone has already probably popped a squat there.
¡Ultreia!
~Penny