Friday 22 June 2007

Day 12 - From Sarria to Melide














































No rain, no rain! No wind to speak of. 20 degrees outside temperature. Perfect weather for a cycling day in Galicia. And that´s just what we had. We were already impressed yesterday with our last 20 kilometres into Sarria through beautiful landscapes, small villages, little stone walls bordering every piece of grassland (the kind that makes us feel like we´re cycling in an English TV series on vets or local detectives, or both combined; no, that would be an australian series).
The 65 kilometres we did today confirmed our first impressions of Galicia from yesterday. Really the nicest cycling environment we have come across during our trip. Almost no asphalt roads. Most of the time we were on small gravel roads, lots of trees everywhere, up and down, never flat. Galicia really is amazing.
We took it easy this morning. Contrary to the places we stayed at in the past, we did not have to be out by 8h00. So we slept until 9h30, had breakfast (bocadilla! the big sandwich kind of meal that is available at any time of the day). On our bikes only at around 11h00.
Maybe it is a mental thing but the fact that we only had 110 kilometres left to go till Santiago made the three of us take things a bit easier. And even if the Galician cycling paths are a real pleasure, there is no time for relaxation. They just do´nt do flat roads here. So in order to get to our goal for today we had to cycle a little longer than expected. We only arrived at about 19h00 in Melide. No more room at the local Refugio. So we booked ourselves into a pension/hotel. 45 euros for a 3-bed room (in general prices for accommodation and food always seem cheaper here than back home in Romania, but maybe we are just comparing prices in the countryside with the prices in the capital, Bucharest). A hotelroom with bathroom! A luxury we have not enjoyed for the last week.
While cycling today we witnessed a new phenomenon. The leisure-pilgrim. In order to be eligible for the Santiago ´certificate´you need to walk the last 100 km of the Camino (or cycle the last 200 km). Since Sarria is 110 km from Santiago, it is the last major starting point for pilgrims to begin their Camino and still be a ´real pilgrim´. The result is that we saw a whole series of ´tourist pilgrims´ walking in groups on the path. How did we recognise the ´tourist pilgrims´? They are shaven (the men for sure, the women we suppose). They smell of perfume (and lack the typical pilgrim body smell that needs at least 10 days of fermentation on the Camino before it starts to manifest itself). They have no luggage (or maybe only a small backpack of the kind you take when you go shopping in town). They seem overjoyed whenever someone says ´buen camino´ to them. They stop for a coffee at every bar on the road. They step over cow shit so as to keep their boots clean (real pilgrims aim directly for it, as it is said to contain ingredients that soothe foot ache, and cyclists simply enjoy the mess it creates for many meters after having driven through it).
Pilgrim walkers do not really appreciate pilgrim cyclists (they call us ´peregrinados decaffeinados´, or something similar, please forgive Richard´s Spanglish). But pilgrim walkers and pilgrim cyclists join together in a cynical attitude towards these ´tourist pilgrims´. You also have ´weekend pilgrims´. Persons who only walk the Camino during the weekend. As tomorrow is a Saturday, we are in for a great gathering on the last stretch to Santiago. We can laugh about each other now but the moment we will be standing in front of the cathedral we surely will feel one with all the pilgrims, be they walkers, cyclists, tourists or even the dreaded weekend pilgrims.
Tomorrow is our final day. The goal of our trip, Santiago, is only 50 kilometres away. We are looking forward to arriving there at last after our trip of some 800+ kilometres. But we also have a strange kind of feeling. Could it be we will miss our daily routine? Waking to the sound of rustling plastic bags. Fixing our near-daily flat tyres. Two coffees (Jan and Sam), one tea (Richard) for breakfast. One cold (that´s the way they serve it here) bottle of red wine for lunch. In bed by 22h00, ear plugs in place. We might. Being on the Camino has grown on us.
Day 12: 65 kilometres, 5 hours 45 minutes, no technical problems, no rain, no wind, many tourist-pilgrims still smelling of shampoo and deodorant (deodor-what?)

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