53. A Pena to O Logoso

My plan this morning was to rise just after 6.30am, dress, pack and head 50 metres back up the road to the café (due to open at 7) for breakfast. Things changed when the guy in the bunk above me decided to get up at 5! He was so heavy and clumsy getting down the ladder that I was almost thrown to the floor. I tried to go back to sleep while he packed but he was, shall we say, not subtle in that either. Just after he left, the woman in the bunk opposite decided it was time to go. And so, it went. 

Once the procession starts, it’s hard to rest. I went out at about half past six to wait for the café to open. At 6.45, I thought, what if it’s late (which is more likely on a Sunday)? In the end, after all that hanging around, I decided just to get going and let breakfast take care of itself!!

It was a still misty morning. Humid but still nice for walking.

I was pleased to come across an open bar in a little village four kilometres further along the path. Breakfast - perfecto!

Watered and fed I launched forth again, across hill and vale.

As you can see from the photos, this part of Galicia is more open. It’s probably because it’s Sunday but certainly today it seemed more sleepy too. 

I took two other short breaks during the stage but the kilometres still seemed to fall away. By 2 o’clock, I reached my destination for the day, O Logoso, a tiny hamlet tucked away in the hills behind Olveiroa (one of bigger villages in this region). There isn’t much more than a restaurant and the albergue here but from a pilgrim perspective that’s enough.

The whole complex seems to be managed by one extended family, grandparents and parents doing the work while children aged six months to six years play in and around everyone. I enjoyed a pilgrim menu with a German guy who arrived around the same time. He’s been walking the Camino del Norte (from Irun, on the eastern end of the north coast of Spain.

As we chatted, he shared that walking this past month had helped him to realise how much he loved his girlfriend and her young daughter. In fact, he’s decided to ask her to marry him. While he was in Santiago, he purchased glue, paper and markers, and made a big sign Heirate mich - Marry Me? He then stood in front of the cathedral and asked someone to take a photo of him holding it. At home, he’ll design a picture book with photos of his Camino. The last photo will be of him holding the sign. When it’s printed, he’ll give it to his girlfriend, and when she opens the last page she’ll see his proposal. How’s that for German ingenuity (and patience)!!?? 

It’s a lovely story and, for me, it symbolises why a pilgrimage can be such a significant experience. It’s an adventure, and it is a simple, repetitive practice. It takes you out of your ‘normal’ (frequently busy and distracted) life and allows time for contemplation. It is outward work (physically engaging) and, consciously and/or unconsciously, it is also ‘inner’ work (mentally, emotionally and soulfully engaging). There’s time for things to be processed, and for things to emerge, for choices and changes to be made. There are challenges that go with being on pilgrimage (managing yourself and some of the ways others manage themselves, chief among them) but time for contemplation is one of the great gifts and blessings.

Buen Camino 

Neil♥️👣

PS I apologise that the photos today are a bit washed out. I didn’t realise how much dirt I had on the lens of my phone camera!!

PPS. By the end of the day tomorrow, dear reader, I should be able to see the sea!!! Not the Mediterranean, on the southeast coast of Spain, last sighted (and stood in) fifty four days ago, but the Atlantic in the far northwest. Wow, how amazing!!