Everything was still drying out as I left Melide and headed for the Santa Irene Albergue, also known as Xunta in the Galicia area.
I left at 6:40 AM and stopped for breakfast at a German type Albergue, restaurant, and bar called El Aleman. I got talking to a German fellow named Clemens because I noticed he was wearing some “dirty girl gaiters” which are popular for people hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada in the US.
I asked him if he had hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and he said, yes he had hiked a portion of it, but then stopped because he didn’t like the food choices in the fast food gas stations that he had stopped at. I told him he should’ve gone into towns that have regular grocery stores. I got the impression he talked himself out of continuing with the hike. He did have high praises for the Trail Angels that picked them up from the San Diego airport and drove him out to the beginning of the Pacific Crest Trail at Campo, CA.They also helped him get his heavy winter gear shipped back to Germany from Kennedy Meadows, where he had shipped it earlier in advance of heading up into the Sierras.
We passed by several plantations of eucalyptus trees, and Clemens told me there were a wide variety of eucalyptus tree species.
After a couple hours, he stopped to have some coffee and a beer while I continued on since I needed to hike about 26 miles that day to get to Santa Irene. Throughout the rest of the walk, I had to put on my poncho several times as the rains reappeared.
Many homes in this area have these elevated storage sheds used to protect food for the cows.
It was another beautiful day of walking through forests which included some plantation forests of eucalyptus and pine trees.
All along the Camino Santiago, you see crosses, or memorials set up. At other places, there are niches where people leave pictures and messages about those who have died. Most likely those who died enjoyed traveling the Camino Santiago, and not died on the trail.
When I got to Santa Irene, I was on the south side of the highway and came to the Santa Irene Albergue and it had a “Cerrado”-closed- sign on it. I first thought I had to walk a few more kilometers to find another place to stay, but then I looked at the map and saw that on the other side of the highway near a café, there was a Santa Irene Xunta—albergue name in Galicia Province.
When I got to the building, it looked more like an information office, I went in anyway, and discovered it was another Santa Irene Xunta and brand new at that. They still had no Internet Wi-Fi nor any dish and silverware in the kitchen area.
For dinner, I was thinking I would go to the café just up the street from the Xunta.
When I checked in she mentioned that I could go up to the café and knock on the door and someone would get me some food, but I didn’t quite understand that since I was tired and looking forward to taking a hot shower.
There were very few people here and one of them told me that the café was closed as I was walking toward the café in my flip-flops. I was then thinking I was going to be having two of my Nature Valley oatmeal granola bars for dinner along with my orange juice.
Then Andy, from Switzerland, told me that the Xunta manager said the café owner was up there and would provide to-go food for any of us that wanted it, and to just knock on the door.
I was the first one up there and ordered lasagna and mixed salad a lemon soda with ice and an apple tart.
Andy then came up with two others that he’d been traveling with since Leon. Carolina lived in Madrid, but was from Mexico with a Lebanese father and a Spanish mother. Cathy was from Tampa, Florida and worked for Amazon AWS system. The fourth person was from Denmark and he didn’t talk too much.
I got back to the Xunta kitchen and laid out my dinner. It looked pretty good as well as tasted good. The portions were huge and I could’ve shared both the lasagna and the salad with someone else but instead, I just ate it all. The other three had leftovers they planned to have on the trail of the following day.
Before bed, the three of them were talking about leaving at 5:30 AM the following day so they would have plenty of time to get into Santiago de la Compostela and get their certificates of completion and arrange for accommodations. Both Carolina and Cathy were suffering from injuries— primarily started with blisters— so they were walking slowly.
I was the first one to leave at 6:20 AM while they were still packing up.
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