Yesterday a miracle of nature happened: No rain! Not a drop! All day long! The sun even came out for a few hours in the afternoon to shine down on we few pilgrims still making our way along this home stretch of the Camino. We´ve often seen little messages of encouragement left on rocks and shell markers along the way and yesterday the general theme of the messages was "keep on going, you´re almost there!" Anyway, Tom and I had been planning on walking 19 kms from Salceda to the village of Vilamaior. That would leave us only 9 more kms to walk to Santiago, so we figured we´d arrive at Santiago early in the day and have plenty of time to look around and maybe even make it in time for the pilgrim mass at noon. But when we arrived at Vilamaior the only casa in town was full! We couldn´t figure it out, since there weren´t all that many pilgrims on the Camino...we had a sneaking suspicion the culprits might be members of a pilgrim tour group, since the casas are open to them, too. But, of course, that was just sort of a sour-grapes-venting- kvetching-type notion on our part to keep our minds busy as we tramped the 4 kms to the next townof Monte del Gozo where the only shelter was...a 500- bed xunta! As in, one of those places we vowed we´d never stay in, not even in a small one! But then, of course, man proposes, God disposes, right? As we walked towards our xunta fate I worked on channelling my inner Polyanna, telling myself that this was a good thing because we´d now be that much closer to Santiago, that at least we´d have a bed, that bedbugs really weren´t all that bad...but early yesterday evening, because a probably very lovely casa rural was full, a myth that probably needed busting, at least in our minds, was busted! Big time! When we first set sight on this behemoth xunta in Monte del Gozo, Tom noted its resemblance to an army post, with row after row after row of "barracks", but not ugly since the buildings were surrounded by trees and the hillside. Now for the myth- busting part: when we walked into the only open building (each building had 96 beds, so one had more than enough fbeds or the few pilgrims still needing a bed for the night) we were greeted by a hospitaliera as nice, friendly and helpful as any we´ve met so far as she accepted our 6 euros each and handed us our disposable paper sheets and pillow covers to use on the mattress-covered mattresses (take that, bedbugs!); far from being depressing, the long well-lit hall of the building reminded us of a college dorm, and our room looked like a dorm room, only a dorm room with 8 beds instead of two; And as for the bathrooms, they were far superior to some of the bathrooms we´ve experienced even in the private albergues: clean, clean, clean, plenty of TP in the stalls (and a seaat for every toilet!), and the showers were the best: tons of the hottest water, and rather than having no place for you to hang your clean clothes while you shower so that you have to hang them over the shower door where they always end up getting wet because the stalls are so small, this shower area had hooks outside the showers for you to hang you clothes on, provided you don´t mind walking from the shower to your clothes in the buff, but, as Tom says...shoot, I can´t even remember what he had to say about it, but it was funny....in any case, I was ´way past minding. The shower stall doors only covered from your neck to your knees, but I didn´t care about that,either, especially since the stalls were so big that you could hang your towel over the short door without it getting all wet. (I never thought I´d find so much to love about a community bathroom experience!). And get this: Where the buildings ended was what looked like a college quadrangle with tress, benches and a fountain, a supermarket (closed for the season), gift shop (closed for the season), and laundromat, not closed for the season (though empty of customers!) As soon as I saw that empty laundromat my heart was won over to this xunta! Also not closed for the season were a snack bar (with this great, fast-working computer!), and a cafeteria where we ate dinner, also run just like a college cafeteria, with the same breed of friendly folks who always seem to staff college cafeterias! And even better, we were able to get our beloved 9.50 pilgrim meal, delicious as any we´ve had: We both started with the salad, which, though it had no tuna (still not missing that tuna!) did appear to include most vegetables on the planet; for the second course I was given too much moist, tender pot roast for even me to finish, along with a pile of vegetables and buttered potatoes on the side. Tom had fish with buttered potatoes and rice (sometimes you´re just feeling carby!).The only dessert options, though, were strawberry yougurt or fruit, so I went with the yogurt, Tom had the fruit. (I guess sometimes you´re forced to make the healthy choice!) Besides a few of our fellow pilgrims the cafeteria was full of noisy (in a good way!) kids who appeared to be with one of the middle-school field-trip groups we´ve seen on the Camino and who were probably spending the night in the xunta. So anyway, I guess the moral of the story is this: although I can´t vouch for any of the other xuntas of Galecia, the 500-bed xunta at Monte del Gozo is one heck of a nice xunta! So then, we´re now about 4.3 kms from Santiago, a walk of about 1 1/2 hours (at my slow speed), and it´s another wonderful gift of a rainless morning! So I guess we´ll be on our way and next time I write, God willing, we´ll be in Santinago! May everyone of you find a moment of bliss somewhere along your way today! Love, Patti 8)
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