I was woken from my afternoon nap by the melody to Greensleeves, of all the pieces in the world – the guitarist from Villafranca must have caught up to me. Now that my pace has slowed a tad, it’s likely I’ll be running into a few familiar faces over the next couple of days.
I set off late from Airexe this morning, being its sole inhabitant for a couple of hours after the Belgian pilgrim set off at five thirty for Ribadiso. I was in much less of a hurry, still mulling over whether to dawdle in Vilar de Donas and wait to see the peerless medieval murals of its famous church. Even at the disgracefully late departure time of 7.30am, the whole world was steeped in a sea of mist, from which only the tops of the trees and the hilltops of the valleys beyond emerged like the ruins of a sunken world, much like Portomarín yesterday.
I decided to make for Vilar de Donas in the end, seeing as it would be a relatively short one today (23km) and I had time to kill. It’s a small detour of 2km to the north from the hamlet of Portos, but you’ve got to time it right. I arrived shortly after 8am, and while the internet and guidebooks give various times, for the record, the church is open from 12.00, and no earlier. A local electrician told me I could seek out the ageing sacristan who lives in a house nearby and ask, but as it was still so early, I decided it would be best to leave him be – not least of all as he is in his mid-nineties! I did, however, get a reasonably good view of the church through a crack in the door, and I can only conclude that the 12.00 opening time is a crying shame: the church is at its most magical in the morning light, when the rising sun throws down a golden beam across the floor through the opaque marble window. I’ll have to come back and see this marvel again sometime.
The road to Melide cuts through a number of forests, from carefully planted rows of pine and silver birch to the once-so-alien stands of eucalyptus, which are such a feature of the Galician landscape. Most magical of all, however, were the truly ancient forests that the Camino traverses, with wildly twisting branches and an undergrowth so dense it would need a machete to pass through.
Sometimes the arching trees seem to create tunnels, as though intentionally sheltering the pilgrim road as they must have done for over a thousand years and more. The colourful turigrinos passing through had their heads down on their phones, unfortunately, but the marvel wasn’t lost on those few true peregrinos left on the road.
I reached Melide shortly after one in the afternoon, but it was twenty past by the time I found the albergue – by which time a horde of turigrinos (a pejorative term used by pilgrims to describe the sudden mass appearance of tourists sharing the pilgrim road for non-spiritual reasons) had descended, which meant my first queue for an albergue municipal of the whole Camino. Given that this is often a Camino staple in high season, I should really consider myself lucky!
More than lucky, however, I was certainly hungry, having eaten little more than the last of the homemade biscuits for breakfast this morning. Melide is famous for its pulpeiras – restaurants specialising in the Galician speciality, octopus – and the name thrown around for the last few days has been Pulpería Ezequiel, an award-winning family business on the high street. A ración of the famous pulpo costs 11€ and is more than enough to sate the appetite – and it really is sensationally good. Do drop by if you’re passing through. There are plenty of other options, but Ezequiel himself must have been cutting and chopping octopus all morning, since that was what almost everybody seemed to be ordering! One wonders just how many octopuses (octopi?) the Galicians get through each day, never mind the Spanish at large…
I’ll try to catch a pilgrim mass this evening, as there was none to be found last night. I’m still deliberating whether to shoot for Santiago a day early on Sunday, but we’ll just have to play that one by ear. Until the next time! BB x
The Book of Barnabas 