Day 67: Resting our Heads

It seems that in the six years since our last camino in Spain that the albergues have improved. It was pretty common on our first camino to have a timer on the shower that shut it off after a few minutes—at which point you had to reset it. Laurie grew adept at doing it with her hip. In 67 days on this trip we’ve only had one shower with a timer. We also find many places have sheets and towels, coffee machines, and other things that you take for granted in daily life at home. Competition for pilgrim dollars? Regardless of the reason, we’ll take it.

We did splurge today and took a room at a Parador. This is a chain of state owned luxury hotels usually located in historic buildings such as monasteries or castles. Our parador complex includes a fortress tower and no bunk beds. Certainly no shower timer. Too bad the turkish bath was all booked up for today. I guess that will qualify as pilgrim suffering.

Our Walk Today

We spotted two stork nests—our first since one in Gernika. They were common in the regions of our first camino. The ”clack clack clack” as they beat their beaks together in a mating call was distinctive and fun. We also came across a horreo that was falling apart and gave us kind of a unique cutaway view. No bad husbands spotted inside.

We are scheduled to reach Santiago on Tuesday—only five days away!