Day 27 – monk spotting

Day 27 – Triasecasa to Samos, 12kms, 2.5 hours. Rest day. Its unreal how our rest days now still include a 12km walk.

Jess had hurt her ankle, i still cant eat anything but rice cakes and with anna feeling a little tired we agreed why not do an alternate route and just walk 12kms and stay at a 6th century monestry in Samos and call it a rest day.

Im asleep and i hear ‘renay, weve slept in. Its 8am!’ The entire room besides, jess, anna, alberto and i were long gone. Ah well. We casually take our time and head out for breakfast. The girls are keeping me on a strict diet so literally 2 pieces of plain toast for me.

We took the alternate route and said bye to Alberto but no doubt will meet up again.

It was a pretty easy walk in a beautiful bush alongside a river and fields most of the way, only passing through a couple of small old villages. All with huge churches in every one.

At 1pm we checked in to the albergue and i slept till 4pm, only waking to do a tour of the monestry – which was pretty darn cool.

Its the biggest monestry in europe but now only has 10 monks living in it. I know i just did the tour but im a little out to it today so dont remember much. Unfortunately there was an explosion in the monks distillery in which destroyed quite a bit of the monestry. Anna was so proud at her monk spotting in the garden.

There is mass tonight at 730pm in the monastry so we are going to go along to that.

Other than that we now have under 130kms to go to Santiago, then another 120ish kms to Finnistere. We should be in Santiago in 4 days – it seems crazy! In a way i cant wait to get to the beach in Finnistere and say ive walked across spain. On the otherhand i dont want all this quality time with random strangers and new friends to end. I want my feet back to normal and a damn good pedicure and body scrub thats one thing for sure!

Theres been lots of talk between friends here about the fear of going back home or leaving the camino, leaving the new friends youve made that have got you through everything. Jess had met a lady who said she was walking the camino to learn how to say goodbye. As life is just full of goodbyes. Which was very left field if you knew every one elses reasons for walking the camino. But its true. Its so hard making these great friends and then they go on. You may run into them again, you may not. Then everyone leaves and goes home.

Its also interesting to think that there are parralel camino worlds going on just one day ahead or one day behind. Everyone has their own camino friends and family and just depending on the day you started can affect youre whole entire camino experience. I count myself pretty lucky with mine!

Ok time for mass.

Back from mass and dinner. Mass was interesting.. to watch. The monks led it and i couldnt understand a word. As soon as it went quiet my stomach just gurgled and gurgled so loud. So then i had to try and hold in uncontrollable laughter. anna translated and they said a prayer for us pilgrims, that he hopes the wind will be behind us (anna and jess both glance at me) and we are a fresh as we go on these last days to Santiago. I got down on my knees on that pew and prayed id feel better. (Jessica – when you read this, your hug in church was the best thing ever! Thank you so much)

We took communion and then left. Theres no interaction with the priest/monks. Just all so ritualistic and a bit sterile.

We set off in town to find dinner. Led on a wild goose chase in the search for a bar that serves pasta. Because plain pasta was all i could have. After doing 2 laps of the town we settle for the one 10 metres from our front door. Great choice.

The waiter takes our order and the girls get hamburger and fries. Me ‘pasta solo por favor’. The waiter just looks at me so i tell him im sick. ‘So just plain pasta?’ ‘Yep but with cracked pepper thanks’. ‘Ill also bring you peppermint tea’.

Apart from some serious food envy looking at the girls, my plain spaghetti with pepper and olive oil was extremely satisfying. We finish and the waiter just comes back with this bottle of unlabeled clearly home made liqueur and shot glasses. Tells me i must take it it will make me better. Wow wee. It was like christmas in a shot. Cinnamony and warm. Then the chef comes out 10 mins later with another bigger bottle of a blue greenish liquor this time and tells me this is much better for being sick. So i get 2 shots. Thankgoodness we were only 10 metres from home! I pay and joke with the french waiter if he needs any employees. He grabs the chef/boss and asks, and now i have a job if i want after the camino. Could be tempting.

R. X

Alberto