The Downhill started here! - Marcella's Casona de Sarria

 Once again it is cold, but today also now damp as is Galicia. The climb out of Sarria is not at all welcoming; it is heating me... but not in a good way. If I  didn't know better I'd think I was very hungover. I hadn't slept with the rude Chinese talking at normal volumes at 4.44am and having made noises I wouldn't otherwise believe possible. The snoring had started from one of the Chinese bunk beds, and the other two joined in. I don't know how it happens that someone is able to make such noises with the human body merely by breathing and still sleep, all the while keeping me and some others no doubt, awake. There must surely be extra tubes and flaps in that individual. 

 Having said that if course, I may have slept at some point during the night and snored myself, but I do not recall sleeping. As I lay there listening to the never ending rattle, snore, snug, blow, hiss, hollow rumbling, whistling and snorting I start to hallucinate. The dream sequence I had I thought at the time to be delirium... Visions of John Cleese and his Holy Grail character saying "I fart in your general direction...Ah tol' 'im I fart in eez general direction, he he he..."

 Some while during the night the three Spaniards decide the Chinese should not have a complete monopoly and competed for snoring awards. I was aware that quite late I was lying there laughing quietly to myself in disbelief, that such a complicated array of noises could be made. I stifle a laugh and what I fear might be a loud fart in retribution and realise that anyone else awake would take me for an imbecile and not speak to me at breakfast.

 Eventually I do sleep because 4.44 happens and they start to chat. This really is an early 'pilgrim' start. But there are four other people in beds trying to sleep if no longer actually in the act of... Torches are lit, conversations struck up - I "shush!" the bastards loudly and it has some effect. They gather their packs and go out into the hall, continuing their conversations there, and what's more, opening and closing doors to the dormitory and bathrooms, without using door handles! This is too much!

 At seven or so I awake once more and realise immediately I left my washed gear outside and it will be damp.

 Marcella puts it into her tumble dryer while I breakfast.

 At breakfast I share a table as is the pilgrim Way, with a family of four from Columbia, the two adolescent kids speaking very good English, having studied in Wales for their Masters, the parents speaking as little English as I do Spanish. The three Spaniards who also snored join us; the party of six American women are at their own table and everyone comments on the amount, and variety of, the breakfast. Ham, sausage, cheese, croissants, breads, pancakes, fruits, juices, tea and coffee, chocolate, biscuits, jams and a delicious homemade hot chocolate sauce made by Marcella to be spread over bananas on the pancakes. All this for €4... 

 As the pilgrims depart and gear is being dried, I ready the bike and pack the bags, Marcella comes outside to smoke another cigarette and we chat. She asks how I came to be doing The Way. She tells me she and her husband had had very good well paid jobs in Madrid; they had everything they wanted, they had their apartment and little place in the country and many friends they saw and socialised with. But there was some lack of direction and meaning in this lives. They wanted something else and then she lost a baby. She was very angry with God. Her husband had made the Camino a few times, and encouraged her to do likewise but she never got on with it. As the financial problems grew in Spain they decided a new way of life was what was wanted. I understood exactly what she meant having been through that same questioning myself many years before. 

 Eventually she did complete The Way as she referred to the Camino, using its English title, and she and her husband decided they wanted to make that their lives. The sold their apartment, the country place, the cars, the motorcycles, they resigned their jobs and came to Sarria where they found a delapidated place that she said had found them. They bought it and renovated it all themselves, bringing in artisans for those skills they had not got. She showed me photos of the property as they found it and it is hard to imagine that, and the new one I had stayed in, being one and the same. She said that certain people doing The Way, the Camino, who stayed there left a little of themselves there. A lot took something with them. I told her I felt this was the best place I had stayed in the two weeks I had been on the Camino and that the ambiance at breakfast and the sense of comradeship amongst all the 'pilgrims' was palpable, that it was like one big family. I also said I thought she made it like that for people, each day.

 It was now light and I should be hitting the road and the pathways, my gear was dry and I packed that, and as I said goodbye Marcella said, "I'd like you come back and bring your wife." And then she said,

" Can I kiss you?"

 She kissed me on each cheek. 

 I unlocked Modestine and lead the bike out onto the road. It was getting brighter and I could see the forms of the hunchback-like pilgrims ahead of me.