See photo gallery.
Dang it. After two good days, this was another bad-pain day. I walked only seven and a half miles, albeit it was mostly all uphill-- but the pain was bad. Moreover, blisters had begun forming again. What the heck? I thought my skin had callused and that I was past that. On a good note, the wrist tendonitis I had developed a couple days ago from flinging on my backpack was less sore (making room for a new pain to crop up).
After being frightened by bulls walking toward me (both times they were herded away from me, but they scared me when they noticed me and walked toward me with their pointy horns), I knocked off in Fonfria in the early afternoon. Albergue da Reboleira was a terrific surprise. I would highly recommend it (except that they charged for WIFI). It had a bar/cafe with outside tables; an inside lounging area with couches for reading or playing games; excellent wooden bunk beds with thick, firm clean mattresses; and nicely laundered pillowcases; two individual showers with sinks and toilets each for men and women; a good area for hand- or machine-washing clothes; and a grassy yard for hanging them.
I was able to rest, shower, do my laundry, relax in the sun next to a dog-friend, eat a cheese sandwich, and fish a fly out of a glass of Estrella Galicia without feeling awkward or conspicuously solo. And this, outside the refugio alongside a dozen French teen scouts and their scout masters who were goofing around; a couple bicyclists who were studying their route maps; a lady in a pink t-shirt who was talking (in a man voice, I might add) on her cell phone; a girl in a matching pink t-shirt who was fidgeting with her fanny pack; and a middle-aged single gal who was looking like a middle-aged single gal. (You would think that we solo women would hook up, but we do not. There were those who did early on, but, by this point, the rest of us seem to have accepted our uneasy appearances on The Camino and surrendered to the fact that our journeys will be inelegantly alone.)
That said, I have become more comfortable on the Camino in general. I have a routine with my showering, laundering, and packing. As soon as I arrive at an albergue, I spread out my sleeping bag, unpack my clothes for the next day, and pull out my mesh laundry bag that already has a small bottle of baby shampoo, a towel, and a rinsed-out soap sheet from the prior day's laundering to use as a facecloth while showering. I hang those items about my shower and put my disrobed clothes right into the mesh bag for laundering after my shower.
Having this down so exactly, I am no longer nervous showering with others even when there is no shower curtain. (I had brought a sarong on the trip to use in case there were no shower curtain, but I unloaded it on the first day to lighten my load.)
After showering and hopping into my clean clothes, which I sleep in and wear the next day, I take the mesh bag straight to the laundry area, then hand wash and line-dry the clothes. Same routine every afternoon.
* * *
I was unsure what country the black man who fixed my sandwich came from, but he was very kind and called me "Lady" instead of Señora. Before him, I only had seen two black people on the entirety of the Camino de Santiago: a man who was standing on the Pilgrims' Monument hill with the windmills, soliciting people to stay at his albergue in Puente La Reina (which I should have done), and a man who was walking between Cizur Menor and Puente La Reina with his French wife, while pushing a screaming baby in a carriage up a very rocky trail. I had met a lot of black women in Paris though. All had beautiful dispositions and every one of the women had short-short, cute, curly hair and an adorable personality.
Dang it. After two good days, this was another bad-pain day. I walked only seven and a half miles, albeit it was mostly all uphill-- but the pain was bad. Moreover, blisters had begun forming again. What the heck? I thought my skin had callused and that I was past that. On a good note, the wrist tendonitis I had developed a couple days ago from flinging on my backpack was less sore (making room for a new pain to crop up).
After being frightened by bulls walking toward me (both times they were herded away from me, but they scared me when they noticed me and walked toward me with their pointy horns), I knocked off in Fonfria in the early afternoon. Albergue da Reboleira was a terrific surprise. I would highly recommend it (except that they charged for WIFI). It had a bar/cafe with outside tables; an inside lounging area with couches for reading or playing games; excellent wooden bunk beds with thick, firm clean mattresses; and nicely laundered pillowcases; two individual showers with sinks and toilets each for men and women; a good area for hand- or machine-washing clothes; and a grassy yard for hanging them.
I was able to rest, shower, do my laundry, relax in the sun next to a dog-friend, eat a cheese sandwich, and fish a fly out of a glass of Estrella Galicia without feeling awkward or conspicuously solo. And this, outside the refugio alongside a dozen French teen scouts and their scout masters who were goofing around; a couple bicyclists who were studying their route maps; a lady in a pink t-shirt who was talking (in a man voice, I might add) on her cell phone; a girl in a matching pink t-shirt who was fidgeting with her fanny pack; and a middle-aged single gal who was looking like a middle-aged single gal. (You would think that we solo women would hook up, but we do not. There were those who did early on, but, by this point, the rest of us seem to have accepted our uneasy appearances on The Camino and surrendered to the fact that our journeys will be inelegantly alone.)
That said, I have become more comfortable on the Camino in general. I have a routine with my showering, laundering, and packing. As soon as I arrive at an albergue, I spread out my sleeping bag, unpack my clothes for the next day, and pull out my mesh laundry bag that already has a small bottle of baby shampoo, a towel, and a rinsed-out soap sheet from the prior day's laundering to use as a facecloth while showering. I hang those items about my shower and put my disrobed clothes right into the mesh bag for laundering after my shower.
Having this down so exactly, I am no longer nervous showering with others even when there is no shower curtain. (I had brought a sarong on the trip to use in case there were no shower curtain, but I unloaded it on the first day to lighten my load.)
After showering and hopping into my clean clothes, which I sleep in and wear the next day, I take the mesh bag straight to the laundry area, then hand wash and line-dry the clothes. Same routine every afternoon.
* * *
I was unsure what country the black man who fixed my sandwich came from, but he was very kind and called me "Lady" instead of Señora. Before him, I only had seen two black people on the entirety of the Camino de Santiago: a man who was standing on the Pilgrims' Monument hill with the windmills, soliciting people to stay at his albergue in Puente La Reina (which I should have done), and a man who was walking between Cizur Menor and Puente La Reina with his French wife, while pushing a screaming baby in a carriage up a very rocky trail. I had met a lot of black women in Paris though. All had beautiful dispositions and every one of the women had short-short, cute, curly hair and an adorable personality.
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