Just a quick NB to try and keep the confusion to a minimum: yesterday´s post should have started "So, yesterday morning", not ¨this morning". Because I was actually writing about the day before. I´m usually writing about the day before.
Anyway, we thought that yesterday was going to turn out to be just one of those days on the Camino, a day you just have to write off. But then the end of the day gave us some nice surprises. The day started out fine, or so we thought. We ate breakfast in Azofra. Tom had a big slice of potato quiche and another big chocolate croissant and a cafe solo (that´s a strong black expresso - Tom´s become a real fan). All I had was a croissant and tea- not enough, first big mistake. But all was going well, very well, in fact the first 15 km´s just flew by, we were burning up the Camino! Then outside the town of Santo Domingo we crossed a dirt lot where Tom, in his words, "found the only rock in the lot." He fell, I about had a heaart attack, but he was all right. He did get a cut on his knee, tore the heck out of his pants, and was covered with dirt, including the clean laundry pinned to his backpack to dry in the sun. (That´s usually how we dry our laundry.) The only fortunate thing was that da few minutes later we came to a water fountain outside a red cross building, and one of the workers came out and gave Tom a package of bandages! By then it was 2:00pm and I was ready to eat the cobblestones off the streets of Santo Domingo, but I won´t go into how one mistake led to another and before we knew it we were far out of the town and any possibility of buying food. We found a sad old park overrun with weeds and cigarette buts and rotted-out picnic tables and a non-working water fountain. In the panic of the moment I´d forgotten to refill my water in Santo Domingo, so now we´d have to travel on half-water rations for the next 6 hot, sunny kilometers. But we sat for a few minutes anyway and gobbled up some left-over snacks we had (our good-old ham rice cakes) then pushed on. By the time we reached the next town, Granon, I was so weak and achy, I was ready to drop. Tom was doing a bit better than me, but we were both truely straggling along. As we entered the town, though, Tom said, ¨this seems like a friendly town.¨ It was true. The town immediately had a nice feel to it, probably because the streets were rather wide and there was a big open square on the right and an old, old stone church on the left. We came to an älbergue¨sign that looked like it had been painted by Peter Max, the Yellow Submarine artist. We went inside and the place looked like an art gallery, with half-brick, half painted plaster walls, artwork or photos on the walls. The name of the palce was Casa de los Sonrisas (House of Smiles). The place did make me smile, it felt so, I don´t know, nice, special, or something, inside. The owner, pretty young guy, I,d say in his late thirties, maybe, told us that he wasn´t a registered albergue, that he didn´t even have a Camino passport stamp, and that he only had one bathroom. I didn´t care, I wanted to stay there. The place was a big old rambling house, art everywhere you looked, photos, art sculptures, enviroments, everywhere you looked, bedrooms here, there and everywhere. He put us up on the third floor in a little room that was probably a big walk-in closet at one time, but now hel just one bunk bed, so we had our own private room. Then the owner told us that he´d have a home-cooked meal for us and he´d fix us breakfast, too. All this not for a price, but for whatever donation we cared to give! . There were about another dozen piligrims there besides us, mostly French, though there were a few Spanish and Dutch as well. The meal was awesome, about the best we´ve had on the Camino (and we´ve had some pretty good meals!). Grilled zuchini, thick, delicious lentil soup, pasta with tomatoes, red peppers and mushrooms, and saffron rice. After dinner we alled washed our own dishes and cleaned the table. It wasn´t required, I think we all just felt like we should. Anyway, The arty albergue in the little town of Granon is hands down my favorite, Tom says, if not his favorite, it goes down as his most interesting one - but best meal. Anyway, we left the guy 50 euros. You can look up this albergue on facebook: Casa De Los Sonrisas. Maybe there will be some photos of it. We hope to cover at least 15km today to the town of Belorado, but if we´re feeling super-enegetic maybe we´ll smoke 27km to the town of Villafranca MOntes De Oca, a motherlode of available albergues. Marianne: One of these times I intend to write about a typical day waqlaking along the Camino, but I haven´t had time yet - compute time is so limted. But one of these times maybe I wall. A wonderful day to all! Love, Patti 8)
Anyway, we thought that yesterday was going to turn out to be just one of those days on the Camino, a day you just have to write off. But then the end of the day gave us some nice surprises. The day started out fine, or so we thought. We ate breakfast in Azofra. Tom had a big slice of potato quiche and another big chocolate croissant and a cafe solo (that´s a strong black expresso - Tom´s become a real fan). All I had was a croissant and tea- not enough, first big mistake. But all was going well, very well, in fact the first 15 km´s just flew by, we were burning up the Camino! Then outside the town of Santo Domingo we crossed a dirt lot where Tom, in his words, "found the only rock in the lot." He fell, I about had a heaart attack, but he was all right. He did get a cut on his knee, tore the heck out of his pants, and was covered with dirt, including the clean laundry pinned to his backpack to dry in the sun. (That´s usually how we dry our laundry.) The only fortunate thing was that da few minutes later we came to a water fountain outside a red cross building, and one of the workers came out and gave Tom a package of bandages! By then it was 2:00pm and I was ready to eat the cobblestones off the streets of Santo Domingo, but I won´t go into how one mistake led to another and before we knew it we were far out of the town and any possibility of buying food. We found a sad old park overrun with weeds and cigarette buts and rotted-out picnic tables and a non-working water fountain. In the panic of the moment I´d forgotten to refill my water in Santo Domingo, so now we´d have to travel on half-water rations for the next 6 hot, sunny kilometers. But we sat for a few minutes anyway and gobbled up some left-over snacks we had (our good-old ham rice cakes) then pushed on. By the time we reached the next town, Granon, I was so weak and achy, I was ready to drop. Tom was doing a bit better than me, but we were both truely straggling along. As we entered the town, though, Tom said, ¨this seems like a friendly town.¨ It was true. The town immediately had a nice feel to it, probably because the streets were rather wide and there was a big open square on the right and an old, old stone church on the left. We came to an älbergue¨sign that looked like it had been painted by Peter Max, the Yellow Submarine artist. We went inside and the place looked like an art gallery, with half-brick, half painted plaster walls, artwork or photos on the walls. The name of the palce was Casa de los Sonrisas (House of Smiles). The place did make me smile, it felt so, I don´t know, nice, special, or something, inside. The owner, pretty young guy, I,d say in his late thirties, maybe, told us that he wasn´t a registered albergue, that he didn´t even have a Camino passport stamp, and that he only had one bathroom. I didn´t care, I wanted to stay there. The place was a big old rambling house, art everywhere you looked, photos, art sculptures, enviroments, everywhere you looked, bedrooms here, there and everywhere. He put us up on the third floor in a little room that was probably a big walk-in closet at one time, but now hel just one bunk bed, so we had our own private room. Then the owner told us that he´d have a home-cooked meal for us and he´d fix us breakfast, too. All this not for a price, but for whatever donation we cared to give! . There were about another dozen piligrims there besides us, mostly French, though there were a few Spanish and Dutch as well. The meal was awesome, about the best we´ve had on the Camino (and we´ve had some pretty good meals!). Grilled zuchini, thick, delicious lentil soup, pasta with tomatoes, red peppers and mushrooms, and saffron rice. After dinner we alled washed our own dishes and cleaned the table. It wasn´t required, I think we all just felt like we should. Anyway, The arty albergue in the little town of Granon is hands down my favorite, Tom says, if not his favorite, it goes down as his most interesting one - but best meal. Anyway, we left the guy 50 euros. You can look up this albergue on facebook: Casa De Los Sonrisas. Maybe there will be some photos of it. We hope to cover at least 15km today to the town of Belorado, but if we´re feeling super-enegetic maybe we´ll smoke 27km to the town of Villafranca MOntes De Oca, a motherlode of available albergues. Marianne: One of these times I intend to write about a typical day waqlaking along the Camino, but I haven´t had time yet - compute time is so limted. But one of these times maybe I wall. A wonderful day to all! Love, Patti 8)
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