Day 38: San Roman to As Seixas (13,7k)
- Frida Stavenow
- Oct 13, 2022
- 3 min read
Day 38 is another Female Energy Day.
Waffles and Beard Braid walk ahead in the morning. My plan is to go sola but I start chatting to an Italian woman over breakfast and the parallels are too many to leave alone, so we walk together for eight kilometres talking about Ecuador and Vietnam and anxious attachment and aggressive boyfriends and being an empath and so on and so forth. Then we stop for a buffet breakfast in Ferreira where the brilliant waitress tells us to stuff our pockets as there will be no services for 20k.
So loaded with muffins and galletas and spongy croissants I walk on, but only eventually, so eventually that a mere five kilometres later it’s already one o’clock and I decide to check into the albergue in front of me. After all I’ve got a week until my flight, and only three days’ walking left. What’s the rush?
Only problem is there is no food and they take no cards and all I have to my name is €7,13. The albergue alone is €8. As for food, all I’ve got is aforementioned galletas, muffins and croissants. But I really want to stay. Maybe a cash-loaded, Monzo-using Brit will show up?
They do not, but I find something better: an angel disguised as a German yoga- and South America-loving dramaturg, who offers to lend me a euro and share her couscous and vegetables with me. Yay. I find some stolen single-serve packs of olive oil in my backpack top lid (thanks Waffles you delinquent youth), and then God sends another miracle in the form of a vegetable truck. The girl at reception confirms it’s never before come on a Thursday. My new sugarmama gets us two bananas and a bag of padrón peppers.
We cook up a storm in the albergue kitchen, which, like all Xunta de Galicia albergues, has no pots or pans or knives or forks or cups or cutting boards. But not to worry. German Drama Angel has a pot, I have a knife, and as for the rest… we improvise.
Afterwards I sit in the chilly garden meditating as the chestnuts tumble down around me. German Drama Angel had done the same previously, and was approached by an old man as she sat re-reading the reviews of the place from her apps and guidebook. They all raved about the woman working at the albergue, and though the girl who told us about the vegetable truck had been very nice and helpful, German Drama Angel had been surprised to find her so young. The hospitalera described in the reviews had sounded like an old woman.
Well. Old Man starts talking to her. Within minutes, he starts crying. Turns out, he was married to the previous hospitalera, who, indeed, had been a rather old lady, and who died – two months ago! Ow my heart. Now the Old Man lives alone with his sick mother in this village of three. No wife. She sounded like she’d been the most amazing woman, too.
German Drama Angel ended up translating to him from German the things people had been saying about his wife online. Just imagine that for a second.
I think about this woman as I sit among the ancient trees, next to a broken stone wall. I imagine it’s her spirit throwing chestnuts down from the tree tops, so loud, like she really wants my attention. PAY ATTENTION. THIS WILL ALL BE GONE ONE DAY. YOU TOO.
Maybe it was. Or maybe it was just squirrels.
Later, I get a message from Waffles in Milede – he’s read the blog, and thinks “this Waffles character sounds lovely.” Aww. Well, he is. You are, Wafflepops. Suck it up and take it back home to your whole waffle-loving country.
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