Cacabelos to Trabedelos

I decided to give it a go with the pack today and it wasn´t the best decision. But I had quite a few stops, and just had a short day.

It was a nice day walking wise but in most other ways it was not all that pleasant.

First stop was for coffee (to go with the last of my octopus) for breakfast. Like so many coffee stops  this was basically an old codger making a few euros with coffee for the pilgrims in his garage. The coffee was good and he insisted I have a piece of madeira cake with it (not something I had struck before). 

My Spanish wasn't up to explaining that it wouldn't go with octopus and everyone was telling me that he doesn't serve coffee without madeira cake.

The octopus was still good but not quite a breakfast food (unlike in Japan where octopus dumplings were my favourite breakfast). I ate a few bits and then decided to just have another coffee. This time I remembered to put the sugar back and was ready to graciously accept another piece of madeira cake without a fuss when he noticed that I had put the sugar packets back on the counter.  He looked horrified and insisted I take another nother piece of madeira cake. They really want you to keep your sugar intake up her in Spain.

Faced with sitting back down to octopus and three pieces of cake, what would you do? Bear in mind quite a few people are watching.

For whatever reason the food combination made me feel a million dollars. You know that 'ín the zone feling'? That was me. I walked with a spring in my step, blisters popping on my back all the while for the next 10kms.

By then the zone was wearing off and I felt really ready to dump the pack. I pulled into the first place I saw in Trabedelos but alas hadn't noticed a woman who had previously yelled at me  'your animals got on my bed'. What to do. She had not enough English to explain to her that they weren't, about spray and all the things. Anyway she kept yelling that she was a gynecologist who had studied these things (yeah right).

So when I arrived at the Trabedelos albergue she explained in Spanish to the hospitaliero who insisted on (yet again) spraying my pack and treating my like a leper. I didn't really mind. There is so much people don't understand about bedbugs and it wasn't exactly going to hurt to have another disinfectant spray (which doesn't kill them) and I was given a room to myself! I do look really gross; one eye swollen shut, four other bites on my face and one in my ear. These are bits you can't easily cover up.

The other really annoying thing that happened was that as I was walking down the street with my wonderful BPA free kathamandu water bottle clipped to my belt loop it somehow popped off and rolled straight down a drain. Early on in the walk Leonie had asked me what would I turn back for - the bottle was on the list.

There was a metal cover on the drain and two local lads lifted it off with a screw driver and felt around. It was clear that they could see it, touch it but not quite grab it. I was pretty determined to retrieve it so after they gave up and walked on I lay down on the foot path and peered and reached as far as I could. I was just thinking that what I needed was a long pole and maybe I should go to the albergue and get one of my walking poles, when I saw a pole approaching, literally. Clink clink clink. I glanced up from my worms eye view of the world and saw a tiny old woman walking along using a long piece of metal pipe as a walking stick. She rattled off some Spanish, and I tried to gesture. She started to talk much much louder and bang her stick up and down inches from me. I stood and tried to ask her if I could borrow her pole. She handed it over but when she saw me using it and couldn't see what I was doing she got really agitated and just at the crucial moment grabbed the top of it. To help me or get her stick back I will never know but the bottle rolled way out of any reach or sight. She followed and yelled at me all the way back to the albergue saying 'no  tocar' repeatedly. This is a phrase I do know because it is beside every fruit stand in every shop and you get the short shift if you try and help yourself. You mustn't touch!