5th March 2009
It was a dark and stormy night… as well as the chill waking us from time to time there were noisy downpours beating against the windows to disturb our dreams. When we woke we found a pool of water the wind had driven through the window frame.
The view through the albergue window at breakfast time!
We dressed, packed and ate in a slightly gloomy mood, given the weather conditions, but when we actually departed, the sky had lightened a bit.
Bruma albergue from the road in front
We passed the church on our way out of Hospital de Bruma
This is all that is left of a larger medieval church and pilgrim hospital, dedicated to San Lorenzo
and by the time the next photo was taken it was hailing!
Pilgrims have all they need to find their way - usually!
The guide covers this day, all 24 kms (that’s 15 miles) of it, in two sides of A5. That suggests a straightforward route, and I suppose it was, but not uninteresting, as we strolled mostly on minor roads through villages, where there is always something notable or quirky to amuse or puzzle over.
An example of the Spanish pruning obsession.
It seems to me that spanish (or at least Galego) gardens are kept pretty neat. Not for them the English spring gardening style; either naturalized bulbs under spreading forsythia bushes, with long thin branches waving in the wind, bowed under the weight of their yellow flowers, or the remains of last autumn’s michaelmas daisies all brown, neglected and waiting for the Easter rush of enthusiasm. No almost without exception, every garden was trim and tidy. Including almost every garden tree. What my father used to refer to as the ‘lavatory brush’ technique seems to have been applied with vigour for many years, producing club ends to every branch from which new growth will be allowed a single season before being pruned off.
If you've got it flaunt it...
The owners of this property have collected all sorts of interesting ’stuff’ – as well as the dinosaur, which surmounted a plough share and other old metalwork in this ‘tower’, there were stone figures and what looked like a tomb on the other side of the road.
There was no ocean, lake, river or even a stream anywhere to be seen - just plenty of rain!
It's always good to meet a new saint - San Paio here in Buscas
This door made me think of pyramids and Egypt!
The old and the new.
So many of the older houses had huge, deep, protective and practical porches. I could imagine them filled with wood for the fire. Here the new house which replaced the old shares a wall with it.
Sometimes the camino was wet and muddy...
sometimes it took a track lined with more gorse and mimosa.
Sometimes the route took us beside rushing rivers...
or down deeply worn tracks with mossy banks
with mysterious crevices among the roots and ivy.
There was time to notice the early spring flowers...
the wind-blown catkins...
from near and far...
the dramatic skies...
the delicate colours of new growth...
nature's delicate compositions.
We stopped at the bar Novo in Buscas at elevenses time, had tea or coffee, Peter had a bocadillo and we all used the loo! There was a couple who had returned to the area after a working life in London – they were adamant that while Spain was OK for a holiday, England was a better place to live. We sat out several brief but heavy showers in that bar, and left while the owner was sweeping out the rainwater which had blown in under the door.
Five kilometres on we were at the next bar, Bar O Cruceiro, in Calle de Poulo, for lunch time!
The last bar before Segueiro
The owner, Caroline, had left the bar for the morning in the capable hands of her father who has recently sold up his business in London and returned to his origins. Sadly, he has also recently lost his wife to cancer. He provided us with bocadillas all round and friendly conversation.
The afternoon continued with the mixture of quiet roads and pleasant woodland paths. Usually there was markers wherever we needed them, and if there was an unmarked junction in the wilds, it was obvious which way to take because the camino has been improved or strengthened in places either with big rectangular granite blocks or nice square stone setts (like cobbles but flatter). So at an unclear junction the setts will mark which way the camino goes.
Eventually we were led under the motorway and into a forest area with broad forest tracks. We turned right on to a long straight one which the guide told us to remain on for 4 kilometers. That bald statement is nowhere near the actual experience! At the end of a long day those four kilometers stretch on for nearer twenty miles! There are at least four valleys and peaks between turning on to the track and reaching the first signs of habitation.
The long straight track through the forest
goes on and on...
and up and down...
again and again!
We thought that Owen and Loralei would have got ahead of us somewhere, especially as we had been having long chatty eating stops, so we were looking out for signs of them, but we didn’t see themselves in person, nor their footprints. Perhaps they had given up, after their tiring day yesterday? There was plenty of time to wonder about them, as we tramped on and on, up and down.
Eventually, we came to the promised bus stop which JW holds out as a sign of hope/goal in the guide. Alas, we had not read the guide thoroughly – at the top of the next page it tells us to Keep Straight On past the bus stop! On and on we trudged, as the rural landscape changed into an urban one. We gradually descended past enormous industrial buildings, orange, striped purple and white, bright blue. There seemed to be new roads and factories, but the guide took us round a corner (at last!) and at last to a waymarker which pointed us left along a path which brought us into a newly laid out park/recreation ground. We came into the middle of the town of Segueiro, and found our way easily to Hostel Hnos Miras where we had booked beds for the night.
Downstairs was a cheerful bar which seemed to be run by a family of women: mother, daughters and grandchildren – a 15 month little girl who was well at home with the customers, and a new 6 day old baby, who may have been a boy, judging by the blue blanket. Upstairs the rooms are basic but adequate. I was warm in bed; there were enough blankets. Basically, any more is a bonus, and there was more – Peter and I enjoyed a huge bathroom at one end of the corridor with both a bath and a separate shower, so we could recuperate together, in hot water, from the long day. However, the consequence was a very wet floor from the condensation of the warm air on the cold surface, and this had still not completely dried by the next morning!
The other problem was that we could find no sockets to plug in our mug-water-heater to make tea – and I do need plenty of tea. Hence the close observation of the family running the place!!
