Day 28 Sunday May 29th
Hospital da Cruz to Boente
22 miles
We had the Peregrino menu in a neighbouring albergue last night, as the Xunta one doesn’t do food.
Both of us had beans and pork as a starter. Mine was fine, but Ricky found bones in his, which on closer inspection, appeared to be part of a pig’s tail. I was going to complain that I got no bones at all!
I had a nice fried salmon cutlet for main course, Ricky had nice pork chop. For dessert I had a fairly tasteless crème caramel, but Ricky got a very strange looking concoction of what the waitress described as cheese with quince. It was some kind of deep red jam/jelly on a bed of strange cheesy base.
Every meal is an adventure here.
We were in bed by 9:30; we had another long day ahead of us in the morning. We were up at 6 am and on the road by 6:30.
To begin with, the weather was just misty, but about 30 minutes in it began to rain. The rain was quite heavy and persistent. It looked as though it was going to last for the day.
It rained all the way to Palas de Rei, where had our first stop – croissants and coffee. There had been nothing open between Hospital da Cruz and Palas da Rei which meant we walked for 2:30 and nearly 9 miles before our first break.
There had been one albergue, Escuella, with lights on and people inside (including two Guardia Civil, drinking coffee), at one minute past eight, but the CLOSED sign was up, and we were denied entry, though it was lashing rain at the time. Most albergues close at 8 am.
After Palas da Rei the rain began to ease up and eventually stopped.
However, many of the paths were awash with nearly ankle deep mud and water. Fortunately my new shoes admirably coped with the wettest and muddiest conditions we’ve encountered to date.
We stopped for coffee at Casanova, where a large contingent of Irish pilgrims chattered with the excitement of the new, having started 3 days ago, in Sarria. They sounded like new recruits to us veterans of the road.
We spotted a bus load of peregrinos in Palas de Rei and a second bus awaiting peregrinos just outside Melide. We also met many peregrinos with new gear, and quite a lot are carrying tiny little rucksacks, which means their main bags are being transported from stop to stop for them.
The biggest mystery to us is how many of the newly rigged out peregrinos we passed, on the last stretch into Melide, seemed to have accumulated no mud on their boots or backs of their trousers, despite the muddy conditions we’d come through.
As we made Melide before 1 o’c we decided we’d have lunch before walking another 3.5 miles to Boente. We went to a shop/café for a couple of bocadillos, which turned out so stodgy we abandoned our plan to have eclairs for dessert.
My apologies to John Finn (Carrigman) who recommended a pulpederia to me for lunch. I wasn’t feeling terribly adventurous, and when Ricky said he had no intention of having octopus for lunch, I needed no further persuasion. Perhaps I made the wrong decision. Sorry, John.
We made Boente before 3 pm and booked into the OS Albergues Boente. We’re sharing a room that has just 2 pairs of bunks with the same Spanish man who was also refused entry to the shit albergue this morning.
The owner has a great beard and a bad leg, and seems to be quite a character. He tells us he’s from Madrid.
Storks make their nests on every high structure here. This is an electricity pole, we seen them on church bell towers, factory chimneys etc.
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