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• Wednesday 8th October, 2014

• Lugo: Hotel Espana, €25 for a single room with private bathroom

Wet, wet, wet!

I slept well in my own room; the pessimist in me was expecting a catch like bedbugs or a cold draft etc but it was perfect 🙂 I was surprised to hear people up before 7am though, this was the first day I’ve experienced such uncivilised behaviour on the Camino Primitivo 😉

I left around 8:30am in full wet weather gear anticipating the black clouds overhead would burst open as soon as I started walking. I went back to Cafe Roma (where I had dinner last night), for breakfast. They didn’t have anything hot for breakfast but the coffee and free homemade mini donuts hit the spot.

The camino path in the morning was along small country roads and forest tracks brimming with mushrooms and moss-covered walls and trees and through tiny hamlets. It was very pretty.

Fountain in Castroverde near the church

Then the rain started but that was fine because I was expecting it to rain… But maybe not as hard as it did and for as long as it did! I had my rain jacket and wet weather pants on, with a raincover over my bag and everything inside my bag enclosed in a dry bag. But this was no rain shower! This was a heavy downpour only possible in Galicia (I’m surprised the locals haven’t grown gills to adapt to the weather) 😉 Before long I was drenched and I could feel the water running down my back and most probably penetrating into the back of my pack. I remembered that I had packed a cheapo poncho so I stopped to pull it out and put it on hoping this would protect my bag a little more… I’ve wanted to buy a good poncho for ages now but I’ve just never found one light enough to make me give up my jacket and pants combination…

I walked in this heavy rain for 3 hours but it felt more like 6. There were no cafes to stop and shelter at so there really was no choice but to keep walking. At least when my shoes and socks had started to squelch it meant I could walk through the puddles rather than around them! I can imagine the walk into Lugo on a sunny day is ok, but it wasn’t on a rainy day. The roads I was walking along turned into streams, passing cars splashed me all over and by the time I arrived, I was soaked, hungry and tired.

I actually lost the arrows into Lugo after coming up a hill near the gate, but a local helped me to find the Albergue de Peregrinos. I had every intention of staying there until I was told it didn’t have a dryer and I now had two days of wet socks and liners and wet washing from the night before. It also has a 10pm curfew and I heard there was a festival with live concerts and I was thinking of staying 2 nights and having a rest day tomorrow… So I checked booking.com and found a brilliant hotel (Hotel Espana) just outside the city walls near the cathedral. I have a single room with private bathroom for €25, breakfast is €2.50 and served whatever time I want and they washed and dried my clothes for €7 (fine for the convenience of not having to do it myself).

Day 8, Castroverde to Lugo

I had a hot shower then went out shopping to find new shoes. I tried three places, Intersport very close to the hotel and opposite Porta Bispo Aguirre, another sports shop opposite Intersport and then Cota Cero opposite Porta San Fernando. None of the shops had exactly what I wanted but in a desperate panic I bought a slightly different model of Salomons and a half-size bigger…time will tell if this was an expensive and crazy mistake, or not!

After shopping, I met up with Rik & Rens for a drink then we went to one of the free concerts and saw an amazing Galician band called Marful, really fun jazz/Latin music and people of all ages were singing and dancing along. We then bumped into the gang and found our way to the vino bars. I think I’ve decided for sure to have a rest day here in Lugo tomorrow but I hope it stops raining!

I couldn’t take my socks to try on the new shoes because they were all being washed!

Marful

Jerome, Sebastian, Dimitry and Sylvan