Day Four on the Camino Sanabres - Castro Dozon to Bandiera

While it’s currently June 5 here in real-time Arundel, Maine, by cleverly utilizing the time-travel capabilities of our “Wabac” machine, when I push this blog-button, we are instantaneously transported back Castro Dozon, Galicia in NW Spain and its 6 AM on May 19th. The rustle of the awakening perigrinos has brought us out of a good night’s sleep in the albergue as people are already packing the backpacks and taking the albergue-provided sheets and pillowcases off their bunks. The day appears to be going to fulfill the forecast of being sunny and good walking weather. The sleeping area has lots of big windows opening up to nearby green hills and overlooks a municipal swimming pool out back; the place feels good, kind of like like sleeping outdoors.

Elaine Hopkins

We were planning on walking 20 km today to A Laxe for the night but the “perigrino grapevine” says that the municipal albergue there has suddenly closed and we find there are no other places with available rooms in the area due to a big motorcycle rally. So Plan B calls for us getting to A Laxe today and then getting a cab to drive us ahead 16 km to Bandeira for the night; next morning we’ll be cabbed back to A Laxe, pick up our walk to Bandiera and spend a second night there.  Elaine Hopkins, our Sanabres walking partner & good friend, was more adventuresome and already has left to walk further ahead to Silleda (half-way between A Laxe and Bandiera) and we’ll catch up with her tomorrow. 

Leaving the busy M525

So after an quick breakfast of yogurt, a fresh peach, some of last night’s bread and the ever-essential tea (Elaine left an English teabag for Joan; I’ll wait for my café con leche on the road), Joan & I head out around 8 am, walking along the not too busy M525 highway for a few miles until, with lots of yellow arrow signs alerting us, the Camino bears off to the left into a welcome silence of woods and pasture. This turns out to be a fairly flat stretch for the next several miles and we walk alone, enjoying the quiet and the beautiful flowers and scenery we pass through. Once again, experiencing the world at 2.5 mph is so different from our normal life back home, all hustle, noisy and time-absorbing. Walking gives us a chance to just “be”, to listen and watch for the little beautiful things that pop into our lives. It gives us time to absorb the beauty of the world rather than just let it slide past, un-noticed in the turmoil of daily life. 

There was one stretch when went down a long hill, passed on a high bridge over a major highway and the Renfe railway tracks and then headed back up the hill on the other side of the valley. We’ll see this scene again a week later, when we're on the train back to Madrid, ruefully noting that the train ride from Santiago to Ourense only takes 38 minutes while it had taken us 7 days to walk the same distance.

A "Full Alistair" rest

Around noon, we came into the outskirts of a village and there decided to have lunch and a rest. This must be a school yard and there are wide steps and a covered patio fronting the pathway a few yards away where we’ve been walking. Shedding our daypacks, Joan & I both lay down and enjoyed what we’ve been calling “a full Alistair”. Alistair and Sally are a wonderful couple from New Zealand we met outside Zubiri back in 2013 when we were walking the French Way. Alistair was a barrister and a man who figured out that the secret to enjoying this walking stuff was simple – just take care of your feet. So at lunch he would remove his shoes & socks, massage his feet with lotion, change into fresh socks and then –putting his feet up -take a good rest for a half-hour. Awakening refreshed, back on would go the socks and boots and off he’d go!  A “half-Alistair’ means just taking off boots and maybe rubbing the feet; no nap or lotion involved.

Daphne & her frends from Malta

As we rested, three young women perigrinas passed by and we chatted briefly, learning they were from Malta. We would meet them several times again as we traveled, once quite meaningfully close to the end but the next time was a few hours later in the town of Estaciaon de Lalin, where we took a early-afternoon break at the Taberna de Vento. There we again met the three ladies from Malta (Daphne was the leader and had walked the Frances before). The signpost outside of town said the albergue at A Laxe was only 3 km ahead but we knew that was wrong, since it was easily 10 km, according to our maps. 

Church at A Eirexe

The quiet little village of A Eirexe was deserted (it was siesta time!) and an old church off to the right was being rebuilt but otherwise, no sign of life. Closer to A Laxe, we were startled to come across an old lady and her two dogs, sitting on the wall way out on a deeply wooded pathway. She had a black lab puppy, who spotted us coming and charged up to greet us, all puppy-slobber and wiggles. The woman spoke no English but we conversed as fellow dog lovers can do. Her other dog was a very old golden retriever, so we showed her pictures of our Finnegan and everybody felt good at our shared experiences.

As we closed in on A Laxe, faded signs appeared tacked to phone poles or trees announcing the building of a big new luxury hotel or of a sports complex; these appeared to be victims of the Big Recession that hit Spain hard in ’09 and is still working itself out. When the village of A Laxe finally appeared, split down the middle by the ever-present M525, we walked down the hill and started into town. We stopped at the first bar on the left and met Romero, the owner there. While we waited for a cab, he told us of his father’s love for Rome and all things Italian, thus explaining his name. He was a very nice guy and took good care or us.

After a short cab ride we came into Bandiera and went into the Hostel Condo Rey, our home for the next two nights. We met Rick, the owner, who spoke no English (nor did anyone else at the hotel) and Joan again did her “Starship Enterprise Universal Translator” thing, which involves the application of her limited Spanish, some full-body miming, gesticulating arms & hands and Google Translate. Amazingly it seems to work and in no time we knew how the laundry service worked (not well), where the ATM and supermercado were located, how to get the hot water fixed and what was for supper that night.  We settled into our small room on the first floor; cramped it was but sweet to think of being in one place for two whole nights!