Day 17–to Reliegoso—pile of packs for slack packers—May 8, 2024

It is just one more day before we get to Leon, and we are now over halfway to Santiago as I left just before sunrise at about 7 AM on Wednesday, May 8th.

The trail continued beside a fairly unused road all the way to the La Peralta Albergue where I stopped for a real breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, toasted bread, coffee, and OJ. This new place was a combination, hotel, Albergue, bar, and restaurant.

I joined Dave from the UK for breakfast. He told me some stories about when he bicycled across India, Pakistan, and Iran. He said it was quite an interesting adventure asked him if he ever thought about writing a book about it.  He said many others have already done that. Sounds like a modest guy. I hiked with him a bit, but he was a faster hiker than me, but I would run into him on other times along the Camino.

The lobby had a huge stack of backpacks, waiting for transfer to the next sleeping place for the Peregrinos who were slack packing for just €6. everybody that I talked to that has used this service raves about it.

In the afternoon, I was joined again hiking with Barry and Lisa from the UK as we came into Reliegos. They had reservations at a place at the end of town. I started looking for a place to stay and the first one was full, but the second one was not.

It was the Auberge Gill and the three guys I’ve been meeting up with every so often on the trail, that I called the three amigos, were checking in.   Their names were Zoli from Hungary, Greg from California, and Richard from Austria.

The owner Beatriz assured me I had a bottom bunk, but when we got to the room, she pointed to the upper bunk, and I started to leave saying I can’t do that.  Then Zoli offered up his bottom bunk. I was really a great gesture since he was quite an overweight fellow, but he said he doesn’t wake up at night when he goes to bed, so it was fine with him.

I joined Kristof,  the Belgian, for dinner. He had walked all the way from his home in Belgium to here.  We both had this thin beef steak and salad for dinner.

Nearby there were two Hollanders that had hiked all the way from the Netherlands, and they had been mostly camping out to save money.