Homer's Travels: Camino 2013 - Day 36: Ferreiros To Airexe

Monday, January 27, 2014

Camino 2013 - Day 36: Ferreiros To Airexe

We woke early on a foggy morning and went next door to the bar/restaurant to get some breakfast.  The bar was affiliated with the other albergue in the town and was open early to support the pilgrims.  This is where I started my sugar binge.  It started with a huge piece of  Biscocho.  Biscocho is Spanish for cake and is a type of coffee cake usually served with coffee (duh) in the morning.  It can sometimes be dry but this piece was moist and delicious.

The walk was a nice one today.  Our first stop would be Portomarín.  I'd stopped there last time and I liked the town.  On the way I started to see the Roland graffiti on Camino markers.  Someone was writing little sayings about Roland who I presume, was another pilgrim.  Things like "do what Roland says, not what he does" and things like that.   Some were quite clever.

A foggy entrance into Portomarín.  The lower bridge is often underwater.
You could hardly see the town through the fog as we crossed the bridge into Portomarín.  We stopped at a restaurant to use the facilities and get something to drink.  We stopped at a grocery store on the way out to get supplies including my ... third? ... tube of Principe cookies.

The Camino is that way.
It was in Portomarín where I first noticed the Tourigrinos (Tourist pilgrims).  I'm sure I saw some earlier than Portomarín but it was here that I remember seeing the really blatant tourists.  These tourigrinos were getting off a bus.  We would learn that this bus was dropping off tourigrinos and then picking them up ten to fifteen kilometers later on to take them to a nice lunch or, if it were the end of the day, a nice hotel.  They also seemed to only be walking flat or downhill sections of the Camino.  None of them were carrying packs, of course, and many only had a bottle of water or a small day pack.  We ended up following and passing most of these tourigrinos this day.

One pair of tourigrinos caught my eye.  She was in her thirties ... low thirties I would say ... and dressed in fashionable workout clothes except for the white tube socks pulled up over her tights.  With her was a man in his late fifties - early sixties and not in the best physical shape.  While she was young enough to be his daughter, we were pretty sure they were married.  We started calling her the Trophy Wife.

I understand the arrow but I'm not sure about the significance of the chicken.
The Camino route has changed slightly on the way out of Portomarín.  They take you over a car bridge instead of the rickety foot bridge that I crossed the last time. A Shame ... I liked that bridge.  Outside of town the Camino briefly goes up hill and I motored up that hill.  I think I was trying my best to catch up with the Trophy Wife and her Sugar Daddy.  I was disappointed that, even fueled by a tube of Principe cookies, I was unable to catch up.  They had had a substantial lead leaving the town before us.

The enemy of the 'true' pilgrim: the taxi and the tourigrino bus.
I finally did catch up with them in the town of Gonzar where they ate a snack at the bar and got back on their bus.  We stopped there for some lunch and a stamp on our credential.  It was interesting watching the man who ran the bar.  He obviously did not have a taste for tourigrinos. When he saw us walk in with our packs he was much nicer with us, told us to please sit down, and that he would bring our food to us.  I noticed a lot of this behavior along the Way ... especially after Sarria. The locals treated 'real' pilgrims nicer than that tourigrinos.

We walked on, leaving the tourigrinos behind us.  At the town of O Hospital we passed a group of volunteers painting or repainting yellow arrows.  I smiled at this and thanked them.  We exchanged Buen Caminos but I forgot to take their pictures.

We passed a few pilgrims we knew in the town of Ligonde.  Ma was here.  She had joined up with her sister and brother-in-law in Sarria and they were completing the last 100 kilometers together.  We talked to them and a few other pilgrims we knew before we headed a couple kilometers farther to our end for the day in the tiny village of Airexe.

Airexe was very small.  They had two albergues, a restaurant, and a church (which I did not visit).  That was it.  I did my chores and I bought an ice cream bar in the bar and something to drink before taking a nap while my laundry dried.

A sculpture of Santiago in the town of Airexe.
That evening we had a good meal in the restaurant including some chocolate cake.  That topped off my sugar for the day: biscocho, principes, chocolate (I had a bar in my pack that I ate), and chocolate cake.  I'm kind of surprised I could sleep that night with all the sugar in my system.

We were heading for bed when more people showed up at the albergue.   It was Ma, her sister, and brother-in-law.  Their albergue in Ligonde had lost all water so they were told to move on.  With them, there were only seven people in this albergue.  It was a fairly quiet night and I did sleep well after a very nice walking day.

Pictures can be found in my 2013 Camino de Santiago Google Photos album.

Total Distance on Day 36: 25 km ( 15.53 Miles)
Total Distance Walked: 824 km (512.01 Miles)

Approximate Track of the day's hike.
[Click on map for a larger version]

2 comments:

  1. You missed your ice cream bar in your list of sugar from the day. :) That sounds like my kind of day! (I just finished some ice cream!) I am really enjoying your Camino posts and look forward to reading each one, so thank you for putting this all out here for us to read.
    --Altar Boy's Wife

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    Replies
    1. Sara, Oops! You're right! How could I have forgotten the ice cream!

      Thanks for reading

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