October 5 – Happy Birthday Dad!
I wish that I had visited this hostel in nicer weather. There was a large yard with lots of outdoor seating. But with it raining all day yesterday, we had to choose between the public room – a small kitchen and eating area for 12 – or hang out in our rooms.
I met my first Chinese person of the trek at dinner last night. My bunkmates were two women, one from Germany and the other from South Korea.
With my leg bothering me, i spent most of my 18 hours at the hostel lying in my bunk. Thank goodness for decent wifi and air pods.
It’s now 8 am – still 36 minutes to sunrise – and most of the 30+ people here have left or are about to. I’ll be summoning my Uber ride to the train station shortly, but see no reason to get in the way of those heading on, as my train doesn’t depart until early afternoon.
My Tesla-powered Uber driver dropped me at the train station a little after 8:30. There was not a soul there. I could see on the reader board that there was an earlier train leaving at 9:36. Unfortunately even though my ticket was exchangeable, the online app kept timing out as it went to confirm the change. So faced with sitting in a vacant station on a hard metal bench for four hours, I decided to walk a few blocks into town.
I found a quiet neighborhood bar and ordered a latte and tosta.
I wandered through town briefly, but between a throbbing leg and most of the city not open on a Sunday morning, I decided to wait the final two hours at the station.
The train arrived promptly at 12:43. A half dozen of us boarded and we were off again. Two stations up the line everyone on board needed to get off and onto a different train. I had received an email about this last night and the helpful woman seated next to me showed me where the replacement train was. At 2:06, exactly on time, the train pulled into the station in Santiago and my Camino reached a bittersweet end.
I enjoyed lunch at a sidewalk cafe and then checked into my hotel room. Given that I’ll be here for four nights while my leg rests, I was delighted by the size and amenities (based on my last month of accommodations).
I’m currently sitting in a laundromat washing nearly every article of cloths I brought along. Good thing the weather has been warm so my long pants and shirt are clean and I had some items to wear.
My hotel is listed as being “downtown” but is located on a quiet side street. It being Sunday, many shops were closed. I knew I was in a big city, but my location has a peaceful ambiance to it – perfect for my recuperation.
When dinner time came, I ventured out again. I had seen a Donner Kabob place walking in from the train station and had been thinking of a Donner (like a Gyro) ever since. The nearest shop was a few hundred meters away, so I ventured towards the core city.
As I rounded a corner two blocks from my hotel, I suddenly encountered a sea of people packed into dozens of sidewalk restaurants. I found my donner shop and went inside where a soccer game was playing on the big screen. The donner and the local Galicia Estella beer hit the spot.
Time for a good night’s rest.
