Live from the Primitivo (Lugo to Santiago)

I did the Primitivo last year starting in Villaviciosa and did a live from the Camino series of posts. I really enjoyed the Primitivo but only had time for a short Camino this year so I´m doing the bit from Lugo to Santiago (which is long enough to get a compostella and a NICE alternative to using Sarria as a starting point).

I arrived at Santiago de Compostella Airport this morning (June 25) at 9:30 am with RyanAir from Stanstead. The flight leaves Stanstead at 6:30am so given that you have to check in at 4:30am, an overnight stay is recommended. I stayed at the Hilton (59 pounds) but if I did this again, I would pay a bit extra to stay at the Radisson which is right next to the airport (so no transfer bus needed, you just walk). Stanstead was zoo-like even at 4:30 in the morning so give yourself the full two hours for check in.

Muchas gracias to Johnnie Walker for meeting me at the airport and buying me a coffee. It was a lovely welcome to Santiago! From the airport, you can get a bus directly to Lugo (which saves you form having to go to the Santiago bus station). There was a bus to Lugo after 11am (the schedule said 11:10 but the bus arrived at 11:20). It cost 8.50 euros and took about 2 hours. It takes you to the bus station at Plaza de la Constitution just outside of the city walls. I booked into the Pension San Roque which is Plaza Comandante Manso, 11 (982 22 27 00) and bookable via bookings.com. This is a GREAT place. It is a block or so away from the bus station and also handy for the train station. The Camino passes about 20 m from the pension at the point where it enters the city walls. That is, before you hit the city wall you hit the Plaza Comandante Manso. The pension is up to the left. I have a single room with a large bed and a full ensuite for only 26 euros, which is amazing. I was lucky to get a room (I booked ahead) because this weekend was the Arde Lucus which is a festival which celebrates Lugo´s Roman roots. I picked up my normal copy of Voz de Galizia and the photos from the festival looked great, but I imagine that accomodation would have been hard to come by. I also noticed that it was the festival of San Juan (San Xoan) in Sarria. So, that would have been busy too. I managed to get my credencial at the Cathedral. However, I was lucky to find someone there to give me one. They ask you to pay 1.50 euros as a collaboration. I paid 2. Tourist information told me that I could also get one at the Iglesia de Santiago a Nova at the corner of the Plaza Major. That was closed when I went by at 2pm, but open at 6pm.

Sun rises at 6:30am and I plan to leave just after sunrise to beat the heat (it was 28 degrees at 7pm). My plan is to take 6 leisurely days to ge to Santiago. I plan to stay at San Ramon de Retorta. This is a lovely, but small albergue with the closest shop about 1km away, so bring supplies. This is 18 km from Lugo. I´m bringing tent and sleepign bag in case it is full. On day 2, I plan to go to the new Albergue in As Seixas, which is lovely and reasonably large. This is a short day, only 13.74 from San Roman. There are no shops in As Seixas, though there is a vending machine for snacks and the hospitaleros sell beer. So, you need to bring food. The last time we did this, we bought food for the abergues in San Ramon AND in As Seixas at the bar before you arrive at the San Ramon albergue. I then plan to go to Melide and beyond to maybe Boente (5 km beyond Melide) where there is a private albergue. From there, I´m not exactly sure where I will stay. I want to try to stay in different places, like Boente instead of Melide. I liked the looks of Ribadiso. I also fancy Aruza (a revisit to the cafe bar Mandala is part of the plan) and Lavacolla. The last time I did this I stayed in Melide, Pedruzo and Monte Gozo. The next update will probably be from Melide.

Buen Camino

Thanks for the info Tia Valeria! Last night I stayed at the albergue privado in San Roman. I´ll post details below with today´s update.

June 27: San Roman de Retorta to Palas de Rei.

For those of you familar with the Primitivo, you will be wondering how I ended up spending a night on the Frances before arriving at Melide! More about this bit of adventure later.

After spending a very agreeable night at the Pension San Roque in Lugo, I set off towards San Roman de Retorta. The route out of Lugo is marked by brass-bronze shells set into the streets. To be honest, a few yellow arrows or camino tiles would have been VERY welcome. I knew the route out as I had done it before and I also has last year´s Tourist Info map with the route indicated. You have to end up at the Roman bridge and cross it. You can spot the camino markings IF you know where the route is supposed to be. It is hard enough to spot the markers in the morning when all the bars are closed and the tables put away. It would be even more challenging during opening hours. I´m not sure how people manage to do this without the Tourist Info map. Perhaps there is some updated version of the route that you can get from a new Tourist Info map, but following the route from last year´s map, I had to follow a not very good but short path down from one major road to the next to continue onto the bridge. My top recommendation for peregrinos in Lugo. Get a city map! It is very obvious where you need to cross the river, getting there isn´t obvious given the current markings.

Once across the bridge, there are very good markings all the way to San Roman. After about 2 hours of walking, I arrived at the Parrillada As Searas in San Vincente de Burgo. This is 50m off the Camino and well sign posted. I had breakfast here last year and the owners are as friendly as ever. They also have a lovely sello with a horrero. They open at 8am. Given that I did the Camino Primitivo last year, I wanted this year to be a bit different. So, I decided to take the diversion to Santa Eulalia de la Boveda. Last year, we were a bit camino tired and decided to go staight to San Ramon. This year, I was ´fresh´and decided to take the detour. This was TOTALLY worth it. The turnoff is well sign posted. You continue straight going slightly downhill until you come to a cross roads where you turn left.

Sorry, the website is acting up so I will submit this and then reply to continue.

Still on Day 2: San Ramon to Palas de Rei (on the Frances).

Right, hopefully the website will now behave itself.

Getting to Santa Eulalia is well sign posted. It took me a bit less than an hour to arrive. The person looking after it said that I was the first peregrina that he had seen that day. For me, the diversion was very much worth it. I´ve seen photos of Santa Eulalia and the photos don´t do it justice at all. The details of the frescos are amazing and it really is a lovely place. Even better is the fact that you don´t have to retrace your route to get back to the Primitivo. If you follow a set of brown arrows (part of a different route) you hit the Primitivo at the Church at Bacurin. After the Church, if you go forward a few meters you see a mojon and yellow arrows (pointing right) which get you back on the Primitivo at the bit with you enter a delightful shaded woodland track with old flag stones at the middle of the path. Please take care to NOT follow the brown arrows (pointing left) which take you in a different direction. The sello from Santa Eulalis is very charming. It has a pair of birds from the fresos and is in two colours.

After regaining the Primitivo, the route is pretty much the same as I described last year. The Taberna at Taboeriro was closed. The bar in San Roman, near the church, was a lively and friendly as ever. Before arriving in San Roman, I was handed a leaflet about a new private albergue in San Roman by the owner. Even though I had a tent, this is where I ended up staying. As you will see in a previous resonse this new albergue is mentioned. It is called O Candido and the man who runs it is called Nito. You can make reservations here. The phone number is 637563755. It is about 100m before the albergue publico, which has only 12 places. O Candido has just over 30 places. There is a mixture of singles, doubles, triples and dorm rooms. Nito did an excellent job of putting the different parties that arrived into different rooms. So, as I arrived alone, I was put in a single. I paid 8 euros for my bed and 8 for the three course menu pergrino. A note about the menu peregrino. Nito has a restaurant in Lugo. So you need to place your food order when you arrive and agree on a serving time. He then goes to his restaruant in Lugo to cook the food and brings it back. It costs 8 euros. A word of warning about the ´mixed salad´: this has tuna, so vegetarian or non-tuna lovers need to make it clear that they want only vegetables.

The internet is acting up again so I am submitting this and will continue

Day 2 Continued.

The food we had a O Candido was pretty typical menu peregrino fare. I had the ensaladilla russa, milenesa de cerdo with tepid french fries and tinned peaches half a bottle of wine and a bit of orujo to top things off. Not a bad deal at all for 8 euros. Nito is very entrepreneurial and has vending machines that sell crisps (chips for the North Americans), water, soft drinks and beer (1.20 euros for an Estrella Galicia). He also has a change machine which will change small euro notes. I forgot to ask him if he would prepare meals for those who are staying at the public albergue, but I think that he wouldn´t find this a problem as long as you placed an order early. Breakfast was typical, but you did have the option of puttting your own bread into the toaster which means that you get warm toast. The margarine supplied was some very strange substance which didn´t melt on hot toast. Nito was quite happy to supply as many coffees as needed (from a real expresso machine). Nito said that 9 people stayed at O Candido and the hospitalero for the albergue publico said that he had 6 people . Given that there were only 12 places at the publico, the albergue privado really does help make San Roman a good place to stay. Nito takes reservations so this also takes away the worry of not having a place to stay for the next few Km. Of course, having the albergue privado so close to the publico does take away from the splendid sense of isolation that I really enjoyed when I stayed at San Roman last year.

I´d like to say hello to Vincent and Anna from Madrid, the three cicloperegrinos from Asturias and Eduardo from Varese in Italy. Up to the point I met Eduardo, I had spoken nothing but Spanish. I did have a go at trying to speak to Eduardo in Italian, but my Spainsh did rather take over. He said that I was the first person he met on the Primitvo that even had a go at Italian and he gave me a copy of an Italian book about doing the camino in the Holy Year (Iacobus by Matilde Asensi). So, I´ll need to dust off my English-Italian dictionary. If you want to practice your Spanish, the Primitivo is a good route to do.

As I indicated in an earlier post, I followed the Roman Road route to the Casa da Ponte in Ferriera. I had breakfast here last year and the owners are very friendly. Their phone number is 689552 329 or 982 18 30 77. This year, I had coffee. They have a nice sello with the Roman bridge. The Casa da Ponte is about 2 hours (my speed) from San Roman. Just before arriving, Javier, from Pamplona, who spent the night in San Roman caught up to me. He had breakfast and as I said above, I had coffee. We set off from Casa da Ponte with the intention of going to As Seixas (me) and maybe Melide (Javier) depending on the state of his feet.

The rest of this will continue in a reply post.

From Casa de Ponte to Palas de Rei on the Frances

After leaving Casa de Ponte, Javier and I stopped by the very delightful Roman bridge to take photos. We then chatted along and continued on the same track and eventually ended up on a minor highway. At this point, we saw a sign point to the Casa de Ponte and to Ferreira back from where we came. We also saw a lot of faded yellow arrows point back to from where we came. I mentioned that when I was at Santa Eulalia the currator had mentioned that there was a variant that didn´t follow the brown arrows which lead to Ferreira. So, I figured that this is what these faded yellow arrows much be about. Given that I had done this route before and didn´t have any navigation problems (apart from leaving Lugo) I didn´t have the detailed Confraternidad of Saint James decription with me, which I used last year. What I had this year, which Javier also had, was the Camiono del Norte guide with the Primitivo varient published by El Pais. This is a great guide in terms of route maps, altitude maps and info about where to stay and eat, but isn´t great if you get off route. We took our maps out and figured that we needed to go right. We stopped a passing motorist who confirmed that going right would get us to Palas de Rei and going left would get us back to Lugo. So, we were faced with a decision. Do we go back and try to find the arrow that we missed and get to As Seixas on the Primitivo or do we continue on the highway to Palas on the Frances? We decided for Palas. We were on the LU 231 which was quite pleasant. We had small bits of uphill and downhill, there were sections of shade, there wasn´t much traffic and the countryside was quite pretty. At one point there was a convenient bench as we stopped for a rest. Here, after studying the map in the guide a bit more I realised that we could have taken a road signposted to San Xuro de Aguas Santas to arrive back on the Primitivo just before Merlan. However, by that time we were committed to our route. Looking back over the route info, it looks like our route to Palas isn´t the same as the El Pais guide one (i.e. via San Xuro). When we realised that we were neither on the Frances nor the Primitivo but heading towards Palas none the less, we decided to call this the Navarra-Canada varient. We turned left onto the LU P2901 and this took us to Palas de Rei. We have 13 km to Melide and will go onto Ribadiso. I was keen to make this Camino a bit different from last year and got my wish. Of course, we can now watch the Spain vs Portugal football semi final.

Day 3: Palas de Rei to Boente

Hi Tia! Thanks for your reply. I´d be curiuos to know if anyone else has taken the Navarra-Canada varient. We managed to arrive at Palas around 1pm, so I think that we must have done something near to 20km for the day. Of course, being in the ´bright lights´of Palas did have it´s benefits: I got to catch up on my email and peregrina posts. Javier got to watch Spain get into the finals of the European cup.

The albergue publico in Palas de Rei is very good and is in an excellent location (in the centre of town AND right on the Camino). There is a bar opposite that was open at 6:30am which was a popular breakfast spot. Our dorm, which I think must be typical, had 12 beds. These were organised into groups of two bunks, divided by a wall, so each group of 4 beds did have some sort of privacy/sound-proofing. Each person also had a large rucksack sized cupboard so we didn´t have rucksacks all over the floor. It also has laundry facilities. What I found a bit bizarre about this place were the bathroom facilities. Each dorm (mixed) had their own bathroom with toilets and showers. The toilets had doors, the showers didn´t. That is, you had separate shower cublices with a partial wall, but people can pretty much see your back end. All I can say about walking into the shower area is that I saw a whole lot more of my fellow peregrinos than I wanted! I don´t think I´ve ever showered so quickly. Not a good place for those who are shy!

The albergue normally closes at 10pm, but the hospitaleras very generously agreed to stay open until the very end of the football match. I suspect the same will be in place for the final on Sunday. Lights went out at 11pm. Quite a few of the Spainish peregrinos had carried their Spainish football shirts with them, so the streets and bars were a sea of red and yellow during the run up to the start of the match.

I really noticed that I was ´back on the Frances´as I started walking. There were more bar/cafes, rubbish bins along side of the route, and a lot of inexperienced looking peregrinos (given the clothes they were wearing). Of course, there were also groups of high school kids with their radios. I also saw signs advertising rucksack delivery (which explained some of the increadibly small packs) and phone numbers for taxis. I did the Frances in 2008 and I have to admit that while I enjoy the increase in services, I am still a bit horrified by what appears to be a loss of the ´camino experience´. I´m not sure if the entire French route is now like this or just the bit from Sarria to Santiago (minimum distance for a foot peregrino who wants a compostella). In anycase, I´m glad I started in Lugo and not in Sarria. I keep on telling people that my favourite route is the Frances, but that was the Frances in 2008.

Between Palas and Melide, there were a number of places to stay or eat. There is a lovely albergue just 45 minutes outside of Palas (Albergue Touristico O Abrigadoiro San Xulian). There is a Albergue Publico in Casanova. About 5 km or so before Melide there is the Die Zwei Deustsher Hotel (on the main road, but signposted from the Camino). We stayed here in 2008 when we did the French route and found the owners very nice and the rooms clean. They seem to have started a bit of an empire because there is now a Zwei Detuch cafe on the Camino and they are building a new cafe in Boente (as you enter).

I have two weeks as a volunteer for the Amigo project starting on July 2 and have access to a flat from July 1, so I decided that there was no advantage in arriving in Santiago before July 1. I therefore decided to stop today in Boente, making it about a 19km day. Just before you arrive at the church (lovely sello) there is a new cafe/bar/albergue (Algergue Boente 981 50 19 74, albergueboente@hotmail.es). This was full of pergrinos and the people running it are very friendly. I`m staying at Os Meson next door (981 501 853, os_albergues@hotmail.es). This is much quieter than it was last year as I think that the new bar gets most of the passing trade (you don´t spot Os Meson until after the church. This is a shame as Os Meson is lovely and the owners Josefina and Mariano are wonderful people. Mariano has travelled the world and "in his younger days", was a mountaineer and is quite a raconteur (in Spanish). He also runs the Bar Cafeteria Mandala in Arzua (which has a Buddha on its sello). He is recognisable by his rather spectalular beard. I told Josefina and Mariano that I dropped by to see them again as I remembered them from last year. They invited me to have lunch with them. We discussed how I was going to break my remaining kilometers up so that could arrive in Santiago on July 1 AND stay in different places. Mariano very strongly recommended the new albergue in Salcedo, so this is where I am heading tomorrow. The following night, I plan to stay in Lavacolla, which only has hotels. I´m booked into the Ruta Jacobea, which is on the Camino. I´ve always fancied staying in Lavacolla and I´ve already stayed at Monte Gozo twice.

Both Os Meson and the Albergue Boente have coin operated internet computers. I don´t know what facilities the Albergue Boente has, but Os Meson has hot a water shower/bath, a washing machine and dryer, a room for handwashing with a covered area for line drying. They also do food.

Day 4: Boente to Salceda

I´m now in Salceda and would like to thank Mariano for suggesting this as a good place to stay. More about this later.

I left Boente at 6:45am. None of the bar/restaurants were open at that time. The first place with something open was Castaneda (2.2km away from Boente). I had coffee and toast at the Albergue Santiago (699 761 698). This looked like a very nice place to stay and the owner was very peregrino friendly. It looks quite small, so I would recommend phoning ahead. While having breakfast, I met a peregrino from Wales who had been on the Camino for three months. He started off in north-east France and it took him a month to get to Puy and two months to get from Puy to Castaneda. I asked him about the crowds and he said that he didn´t meet a single peregrino until he hit Puy. He said that the French route was very busy after St Jean but that he really noticed the difference after Sarria.

Apart from the fact that I enjoyed my stay in Boente, I am very glad that I got to start there today because I was sandwiched between the crowds of peregrinos that must have started off at Melide and Arzua. So, I think that the crowded conditions I noticed yesterday was due to the fact that I started off from Palas de Rei at the same time as everyone else. Today, I had the path pretty much to myself apart from being overtaken by faster walking peregrinos and cicloperegrinos.

The next coffee stop was in Ribadiso at the Meson Rural. Ribadiso looks very nice and I think that I´ll try to spend a night there the next time I´m finishing off a Camino. The Meson Rural also has a coin operated internet machine, so I checked my emails while having coffee. It started to rain while I was doing this and everyone was getting into their rain gear. There was a group of Spanish girls who didn´t have rain gear (and were wearing jeans). The very helpful bar man gave them some bin liners and cut arm holes for them.

From Ribadiso, it is an uphill 2.7 km to Arzua. I had yet another coffee at the Cafe/Bar Mandala (owned by Mariano from Os Meson in Boente). This is at the far end of town after the root markings indicate that you move from the main street to a lower street on the left hand side. The Cafe/Bar Manada has one of the best sellos on the Camino: a rather impressively sized Buddah (takes up two squares on the Spanish credencial). I´ve never eaten there, so I can´t really comment on the food, but the coffee is good. It also has internet AND a printer!!!

According to my guide, Arzua is at kilometer 39.5. You pass through Pegontuno which doesn´t have any facilities. The first bar/cafe you it is just after the 31.1km stone marker at Calzada. This place also has a small grocery shop. Here I was approached by a peregrina who recognised the forum badge on my rucksack! So, hello to Nagypoci. This means ´big belly´in Hungarian. She is due to give birth in October, so I give her and her husband (who she is meeting in Lavacolla) my best wishes. She was also intending to stay in Salcedo and was kind enough to make sure that they kept me a place in the albergue. Thanks!

After the 29km mark the Camino takes you through a village with has two bar/restaurants. That is basically it with regards to services until you hit Salcedo.

According to the stone markers, Salcedo is at 26.3km from Santiago. According to my guidebook, Salcedo is 28.5km away. I think that the guide book might be correct. After the 26.3km marker, there is a sign post for the Pousada de Salceda (981 502 767) http://www.pousadadesalceda.com/ The Camino continues straight ahead to cross a road and go along a track. To get to the Pousada, you turn left along the road crossed by the Camino. You come to a major road and go straight ahead to cross that too. You see the Pousada sign posted again and you keep straight until you hit the Pousada (a large white sign with orange markings). This is a new complex. It has a hotel and albergue. The high season hotel prices are: single 35 euros, double 50 euros, triple 75 euros and 12 euros for the albergue (7 euros in the low season and 9 in the middle season). The hotel room prices includes breakfast (not included in the albergue price). This is a lovely complex. While it is modern, it makes a lot of use of stone and wood and has a garden area with ponds and lawn chairs. The shower in the albergue (there are separate male and female bathrooms) has VERY hot water. There is a restaurant/bar on site and they have an evening meal at 7:30pm for 8.50 euros. They will do laundry for you. They have a washer and dryer and line drying facilities. There is a coin operated internet computer and EVEN a coin operated foot massager (2 euros). The Pousada has 14 hotel rooms and the albergue is small (maybe 10 to 12 beds). Most of the people I met today were pushing ahead to Pedruzo in order to arrive in Santiago tomorrow. So while not a lot of people stay in Salceda, I would recommend calling ahead if you are arriving later on in the afternoon. So, thanks again to Mariano for the excellent suggestion.

Pousada Update: The menu peregrino was great. I can highly recommend the mixed salad (make sure that you ask for no tuna if you want it to be vegitarian. I had the pork chop which was served with chips, gravey and pimentos de padron. The peop who had chicken were less happy. They had roasted chicken served on linguini with no sauce at all.

Day 5: Salceda to Lavacolla

The weather forcast for today was heavy rain. It rained quite hard last night, so I was glad that I was in the albergue and not in a tent. I had a comfortable night sleep and work up at 6am along with 4 other peregrinos. We tried to pack up and leave as quitely as possible. I was out of the door by 6am. It took me about 8 min to walk back to where I turned off the Camino to go to the Pousada. After following the Camino for a short distance, I came to the bar/shop on the side of the road where we stopped off last year. This was closed as was the Cafe Bar Casqueiro 2 near by. This place also has rooms (650838 253, 696 380 140, 981 500 793). This was also closed. Just a bit further on from where the Camino leaves the road in Salcedo there is the Meson a Esquipa which has a one fork plack by the door. This was also closed. The Penson O Meson in O Brea (this is 80m off the Camino on the highway) was also closed. It took me about 45 min to get to O Brea. The first place I found open was the Cafe Bar Andaina in Alto de Santa Irene. I arrived just after 8am. The route is well way marked through Santa Irene and Rua. When I arrived in Pedrouzo, I decided to not go through the town, but rather stay on the Camino. Last year, we stayed in Pedrouzo and assumed that if we walked out of the far end of town, we would be sign posted back to the Camino. This didn´t happen. Instead we walked along the highway (some other peregrinos had the same idea) and we noticed peregrinos off to the left. We eventually found a track that lead back to the Camino. I met some of the Salceda crowd who went into Pedrouzo for something to eat and had the same experience leaving town. So, perhaps some more arrows in Pedrouzo might help get people heading in the right direction to get out of town.

The text window is acting up so I´ll post the rest as a separate entry.

Salceda to Lavacolla Continued:

My next stop was the Hotel Restaurante Amenal (981 51 04 31). This place has a bar and restaurant and it looks like it would be a nice place to stay. This is where I caught up with some of the Salceda crowd, including Nagypoci. We had both booked into the same hotel in Lavacolla and so walked together to the Casa Porta de Santiago in San Pelayo. Here we had another break and lunch. This then left us with a half hour uphill stroll to our hotel. This is the three Star Hotel Ruta Jacobea, which is next to the airport. The hotel is signposted from the Camino and so was easy to find. It is a large modern looking hotel and there was a very lively group of children who were having a post first comunion party. It was quite a luxury to have my own bathroom, complete with little soaps, etc. You know you´ve been on the Camino for a few days when you look at your room and think: "you could probably fit about 3 or 4 sets of bunks in here". I booked this through bookings.com and the room cost 54 euros. It would be good to know if there are cheaper options in Lavacolla. While 54 euros would be quite normal for an airport hotel in the UK, I´m still in a mind set where I´m used to getting a bed and a three course meal for less than 20 euros. We were really luck to arrive before the rain because it started to rain quite hard after about 20 min. It´s now bright again, so I´m off to explore Lavacolla.

Lavacolla Update: After getting settled into the Ruta Jacobea, I had a bit of a wander around Lavacolla. The San Paio looked OK and the peregrinos I talked to today at the peregrino office said that it was nice. La Concha also has rooms (just to the right as you come down the steps near the church). They had a single for 20 euros. That being said, I am really happy that I stayed at the Ruta Jacobea because Nagypoci was there too. Her plan was to stay at the Ruta Jacobea because it was near the airport. Her husband was arriving at 8:30am so she walked to the airport to meet him and then walked with him to Santiago.

On the recommendation of some Irish peregrinas I had the menu del dia at the Jacobea. For 14 euros, this was an amazing meal: there was white asparagus (not my favourite food) with a lovely mixed salad. Before that, there were aperitifs (like pulpo). The main course was filet minon wrapped in bacon and served with chips and two flavours of icecream for dessert.

One problem I did have with the Jacobeo was the seemingly endless children's party. This turned out to be a first comunion party. At 1am you could still hear children shouting. I know that Spanish parents are pretty lax with regards to keeping their kids in line in public places, but I would have expected the staff to remind parents that there were other guests in the hotel who paid good money for a night's sleep. Nagypoci was in total agreement. We also noted that after the party, while the kids were still shouting, the staff dragged (as opposed to lifted) chairs and tables to their normal place.

Day 6: Lavacolla to Santiago

Even though I only had 10km to walk and could have slept in later (especially given the shouting children at 1am) I still couldn't lay in bed after my 6am alarm went off. So I was back on route at 6:30am. I was looking forward to having coffee/breakfast at Villamaior at the Hotel/Restaurant/Bar there. This was closed when I passed. This also looks like a very nice place to stay and I might aim for here in future years.

The first place that was open for coffee was the kiosk at the entrance to Monte Gozo. I then started the downhill walk though the outskirts of Santiago and arrived at the peregrino office around 9:45. By that time, the morning queue had been processed. Johnnie Walker was expecting me to arrive more or less by that time and spotted me in the courtyard from the window and greeted me. It was VERY nice to be recognised and welcomed by someone from the peregrino office. So I now have my 5th Compostella.

As I've said in previous posts, my short Camino is a bit of warm up for my 2 week stint as a volunteer on the Amigo programme run by the Confraternidades de Santiago of Great Britain and Ireland. Our "job" as "amigos" is to greet peregrinos as they arrive at the office. We try to facilitate the functioning of the peregriono office so that peregrinos move through smoothly, but our "prime directive" is to make the peregrinos feel like someone cares that they have walked 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60+ days to get to Santiago and to give then basic advice (like where to find the tourist info offices).

As I arrived quite early on July 1 [Happy Canada Day!!!] I was taken through my "amiga" induction a day early. My fellow "amiga" is Julie who is/was in charge of the hospitaleros in Rabanal and has, of course, been a hospitalera herself. We are sharing a flat paid for by the confraternidad and I can't imagine a nicer person to be working with.

There were some rather special moments while Johnnie Walker was taking us through our induction when some of my amigos(as) del camino appeared at the peregrino office, including Nagypoci!!! and her husband. So the induction was halted while we had a good hug. I also got to say "hello and congratulations" a number of my fellow peregrinos that I had met during my 6 days on the Camino.

I really enjoyed my camino from Lugo. I took 6 days to do just over 100km. I had some nice short days (around 20km per day), finished my walking before things got really hot, managed to not have throbbing feet at the end of the day but still felt that I had done a decent amount of walking, stayed in some lovely albergues and met some very special amigos del camino. So, while this was a short camino, I managed to get that essential 'camino-ness' from it.

I've just finished my first day of being a volunteer on the "amigo" project and I am really enjoying it. I very much agree with the motives of this project which is, at its most basic level, to give pergrinos coming into Santiago a better experience of finishing their Camino.

Equipment List:

I thought that it might be helpful to post my equipment list for the Lugo to Santiago route. This doesn't go high and I did this in late June/early July.

Rucksack
Walking poles
One set of Camino clothes: 1 shorts, 1 t-shirt, 1 sports bra, 2 pairs of bridgedale light weight socks AND liner socks, underwear, walking shoes.
One set of evening clothes: 1 light cotton skirt, 1 t-shirt, underweard, walking sandals.
I had a windproof jacket (only worn once), a light weight fleece (never used), a very lightweight rain poncho (used twice) and a Tilley hat.
Sunglasses
VERY light weight single person tent (i.e. about 1kg) in case I didn't get into an albergue
thermarest inflatible mattress (again, light weight)
light weight sleeping bag (useful in albergues)
Note: I didn't end up having to stay in the tent, but I was VERY happy to have it just in case.
mobile phone (don't forget that you have to put 0034 in front of Spanish numbers). I didn't bother with the charger.
passport
credencial
credit cards and euros
head torch (again, very light weight)
suntan lotion
compede
Ibuprofen
ear plugs (a MUST for alberguews)
eye mask (also a must for when people turn lights on in albergues)
guide
watch
small sewing kit
datastick just in case I had to save something from an email
camera
small bag which goes over my shoulder and is perfect for money, the credenical and pages from the guidebook
2L waterbag

I wore my evening clothes on the plane. My rucksack had my camino clothes including the walking shoes and an empty water bag. My bag weighed 8.5 kg when I checked it in. I reckon that with the shoes out and the bag full my pack was about 10kg. This was quite comfortable. I don't regret taking the things I didn't use (tent, fleece, etc as I like knowing I have somewhere to stay AND if it had been cold and wet I would have been very happy to have the fleece.