Much of the day was spent walking through eucalyptus forests. We felt truly blessed today. Because we knew that we had a very long stage to cover, we had shipped our backpacks and booked two beds in Salceda. Our blessings were four fold: no rain, a light breeze, lots of shade and the peaceful coolness of the forest.
After walking almost 30 kilometres we discovered, to our horror, that we had no reservation and no backpacks at this Alberge. We walked back one kilometre to the only other Alberge in town, praying to see purple backpacks at reception. Thank goodness, the backpack delivery coincided with our arrival and the receptionist assured us that she had two beds for us! Whew!!!
When we finally connected to Wifi, we did receive an email from Pereiro in Melide explaining that we had mis-addressed our backpacks and she had corrected them for us, assuring us that this was a far superior Alberge. And it was!
Touristico Salceda was a two star hotel with a ten bed Alberge. We had real sheets, not disposables and a nice patio bar and outdoor dining room. We met Anna from Boston (Venezuela born) travelling with her family, a group of seven, doing the 100 kilometres into Santiago and shared some lively conversation.
We had another excellent Pilgrim meal, croquettes and salad, fish and braised cabbage and the noted Galician Ribeiro white wine.
You ladies are making great progress! Good for you. The pulpo is delicious, isn't it? I loved this part of the walk. The smell of the eucalyptus trees is really quite lovely. You will notice here too that sometimes the km. markers are not quite accurate. Makes for a more interesting journey. Hope Aida's heel is feeling better. Not long now. Julie
ReplyDelete