We awakened around 6:30 AM in our small room in the Hostel Conde Rey in
Bandeira, untroubled during the night by other pilgrim’s night-time activities,
the snoring, coughing, mid-night bathroom runs or any of the other joys one
gets by sharing a big room with a large number of fellow perigrinos. We had a
nice breakfast downstairs in the dining room, met up with Helmut and some other
German pilgrims we had first encountered back in Castro Dozon, and then caught
a cab back to A Laxe to pick up our Camino.
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| Elaine, quizzical |
As
we passed through Silleda, a rather significant city of some 9,000 located on
M525 about halfway between Bandeira and A Laxe, we decided to drop in on our
walking mate, Elaine Hopkins, so we stopped there. This meant we had only a
fairly short walk - some 10 km that day - on to Bandeira, where we all were
staying (us again) at the Hostel Conde Rey. We had a great café con leche at
the bar at the Pension M. Maeil and then headed out on the main road, going
only a few hundred meters before the yellow arrows took us down steeply to the
left on a short bypass through some local homes before swinging up to the main
road again. This detour was picturesque but an unnecessary waste of energy to
some in our party (no names here!).
About a half mile up the road, the arrows
took us left again but this time we continued down into a flat farming
community, passing through fields of maize and farms where cattle and horses
grazed happily away. Coming into town, we spotted a tourist office (closed)
with a water fountain opposite, so we sat in the growing heat and cooled off. We
had agreed some days ago that one of the fundamental rules for perigrinos –at least
for Team Turtle – was to say “yes” to sitting for a minute upon any bench we
came upon – it had been placed there for a good reason. As we rested here,
another perigrino walking past stopped for a moment and offered us some
cherries from a bag he’d bought back in town. This random act of kindness qualified
as the day’s “sparkle” for Joan – and they were really sweet cherries!
People
were about in town and many came walking back to their homes carrying bags of
fresh local pan (bread). Spanish bread always tastes fresh and shows up at
almost every meal; it usually has a hard but chewy crust and a soft, sort of
“nutty”, flavored center. All sizes seem popular but the kind we saw most often
were the 18” long brown loaves served at diner and the 6” rolls that we used
for our bocadilla sandwiches, carried in our packs for lunch on the road. We
also had a pleasant “buenos dias, senora”
rolling encounter with a really pleasant woman who represented a quintessential
fixture of rural Galician life, the abuela (grandmother), at type that we
decided was probably the glue that keeps family life together. Abuelas seem to
be everywhere- at the supermercado, at church, walking along the side streets
and lanes of small towns - and they always seem to be carrying that bag of
fresh bread home from the panaria just down the street.
This
was really just a nice easy day walking through fields and woods, past small
farm buildings and by an old church, long abandoned and sad. We did learn – after
walking up a hill that had recently been used by a cattle herd- to never walk
with one’s mouth open in such places, for to do so is to invite unwanted
ingestion of fat flies, rising off the tasty meals at our feet.
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| The donkey bridge |
A
bit later, we also crossed what Elaine told us was called a donkey bridge. We
stopped at the top to peer down into the clear waters below and look at what Joan
called “Jesus flies”, who seemed to be able to walk on the water’s surface,
casting dark shadows of themselves onto the sandy bottom below. Elaine was
entranced by the name, previously unknown to her.
By
the way, I have no idea why it was called a donkey bridge and no one we asked
later seemed to know either. Elaine thought it was because the bridge shape was
reminiscent of the pack frame that donkey’s used to carry heavy loads on their
back.
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| Interesting church steeple in Bandeira |
Finally
we came out of the pleasant rural path and onto the ever-present M525 and into
the town of Bandeira, got Elaine registered at the Condo Rey and headed out to
explore the town. We needed to find a supermercado and get provisions for the
next day- Sunday – when almost everything would be closed. Unfortunately it was
closed for siesta but after taking a short nap at the hotel, we returned around
6, got our stuff and then wandered over to the nearby Hotel Victoria for
supper. We had a great big family style salad, loaded with goodies like
pineapple chunks, olives, cheese and other stuff, followed by an equally big
seafood paella, bread, a glass of wine for Joan and then ice cream for desert.
Yummy!
The
next day was going to be a long hard one, with a tough climb out of Punta Ulla
reputed to be on the agenda, so we all went to bed early at the Hotel Condo Rey.
It’s almost necessary to have an easy
day on these walking pilgrimages now and then –it’s good for the body and the
spirits, which we’ve found are easy to dampen with too many hard slogs and
lousy weather.
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