Rest day…

After catching up yesterday with a few pilgrims we started with back in St Jean, we decided to make today a rest day. The same three people are in the same two-bed room, but the beds have been reallocated. We’re watching SpongeBob Squarepants in Spanish and debating how far we can walk tomorrow.

We visited the Parador Hotel today. It’s the snazzy place that’s featured in The Way when they treat themselves. It’s a luxury hotel built out of a medieval monastery. We waited until the security guard turned his back and sneaked past him to view the cloisters. Please don’t tell anyone – they might take away our pilgrim credentials.

We took advantage of the big town to buy a few English books to keep us busy during the afternoons after walking and before dinner. We checked two bookshops before finding a shelf in the back with English novels. Most were dismissed as being too heavy (both the content and the weight). The books had been on the shelves so long, they were priced in Pesatas. The staff used two calculators and a computer before making up a random Euro price to charge us.

I found a little key and shoe-repair place in a large shopping centre. When I approached the counter, the small round bearded man behind the counter ignored me while he chatted for five minutes with the customer ahead of me. He finally asked me what I wanted and I showed him my belt and indicated I needed an extra hole on it. He said something in Spanish and I made it clear I didn’t understand – the two men laughed and laughed. For another five minutes they chatted, occasionally looking at me and laughing. I was furious. I considered saying something nasty and making do with the belt as it was. Every minute or two, he’d address me and say something in Spanish before muttering ‘no espanol’ or something similar and giggling.

When his friend left, he took my belt from me. Looked at it, put it down, looked at me and said ‘ingles?’. I said ‘yes, English’. He raised his hands in a point above his head and moved his head from side to side. ‘Ding dong ding dong’. Then he looked at me, ‘Big Ben, si?’.

I said ‘no, I’m from Ireland’
‘Ah, Holland!’, and began kicking an imaginary football.

‘No, Ireland’, I repeated, ‘Irlanda!‘
‘Ah, Irlanda!’, he raised his thumb to his mouth and lifted his little finger as if taking a drink.
‘Hah, yeah, Irlanda’, I said.

He picked up my belt, looked at it, put it down again and then reached around behind a shelf and took out an open can of beer. ‘Irlanda!’, he said and took a drink then scribbled 1,000,000,000 on a piece of paper, apparently to indicate that in Ireland much beer is consumed.

He picked up my belt, looked at it, put it down again and then pointed at my blue t-shirt. He indicated that the colour was wrong for my country. I showed him my green flipflops and he seemed satisfied (he didn’t notice the Brazilian flag).

During the next ten minutes, I found out that his name was Javier, he was from Santiago, the only English he knew was the first line of ‘Yellow Submarine’, and he had a terrible singing voice.

He finally added three holes to my belt. I asked him how much it cost and he waved me away. He charged me nothing except 25 minutes of my time for 25 seconds of work. I expressed my gratitude, both for doing the work, and believing that I would need two more holes on my belt than I had requested.

After getting my belt done, the three pilgrims went to get Chinese food. Earlier today, we’d eaten McDonalds, a huge egg and cheese sandwich, and a double helping of ice-cream from an Italian who used to live in Ireland. In review the food and exercise we got today, getting an extra hole to make my belt tighter may have been somewhat premature.

Tomorrow we hit the road again: 319km to Santiago, more mountains, more rain, more tortillas patatas ans no more rest days.

Buen Camino!

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Optional Reading:
I’m not technically doing this walk for charity, but a few people have asked if I am. If you’re enjoying the blog and have a few bob to spare, there is a fundraising page to donate to Concern’s work with eradicating poverty (link below). If not, no worries, keep enjoying the blog!

http://www.concern.net/yourconcern/dermot-magee/camino-de-santiago-de-compostela