Made it to A Rúa

I had a very short day today, only 14 kms (well, I admit you have to add a couple to that number because I got lost once or twice, once for a couple of kms, till some nice young couple with a baby came by in a car and straightened me out). I was able to start late, which meant I could even get a café con leche in a nearby bar before starting to walk. The next town is 28 km beyond where I am right now, and that´s more than I can handle. I´m in wine country (one of Spain´s many), there are vineyards and wineries everywhere.

Though the Camino de Invierno was well marked until I got to the edge of Castilla & León, once I entered Galicia, things got a bit more spotty. I´ve gotten lost a few times, but was always able to backtrack and get things right again. I´m taking tons of notes so that I can help revise the English guide -- makes me feel like a girl scout again (oh wait, I don´t think I made it much past the Brownies stage).

This town has a private albergue here, something connected with a Casa Rural (rural tourism house). My first task upon arrival was to go to the town hall to get a stamp for my credencial, as well as to get some general information on internet, etc. As I was heading down the street from the town hall, I heard someone shout "Laura" -- turns out it is the president of the small Camino de Invierno Association here in town. I had been in contact with them for some suggestions and told them I would be arriving today. What a nice man, a very dedicated camino volunteer. He led me to the internet, told me he´d be back to walk me up to the albergue and to give me a written guidebook that his association has published. All help is greatly appreciated, because the arrows are not consistently well placed. But I´m never far from civilization, there are always people nearby, and it´s beautiful!

I am staying in a private albergue that is the home of Asunción and her 88 year old mother. The house has been in the family for 700 years, family lore has it, and there is about 3 feet of a column sticking up in the middle of a courtyard. Asunción says it is Roman, and that when they remodeled the house they dug down at least 10´and never found the bottom. They think it formed part of a temple because they have seen ruins of an altar nearby. There are also water channels running through the whole upper old town which have been confirmed by the "experts" as Roman, from the second century more or less. Amazing.

I ate lunch with Asunción and her mother, who had just gathered the season´s first potatoes and served a big plate of them with some local chicken. She told me that she goes to her garden plot every day and that when she touches the dirt she feels the strength of the earth coming up through her body. This afternoon she is going out with a sickle to cut down some weeds, says it keeps her young, and that when she stops doing it her body will just stop altogether.

So I had been thinking that maybe I would go to a few tasting rooms this afternoon to sample some of the local wine, but when Asunción offered to drive me to a jewel of a romanesque church nearby, there was no contest. And to top it off, a friend of hers has the key, so we will be able to go inside. And that will be the end of a very nice day.

I will probably not have access to computers over the weekend, since the libraries will be closed and I will not be in a town big enough to have private internet cafés. Hope to log in on Monday, and by then I should be less than 100 km from Santiago!