Good Friday!

This morning dawned absolutely freezing – frost on the plants and icicles on my cheeks from the stream of water running from my eyes & nose (well, not quite but you get the idea).  Iris, Philomena and I soon left the village and roadway and started a lovely walk through cork forests and patches of wild lavender.  A fairly short day today – I would have gone further, on to Aldea del Cano, but there’s reputed to be only 9 beds there and the local pension is booked thru the weekend.  The lack of accommodation and the large number of pilgrims is making planning ahead essential.  So Alcuescar it is!

rudolph-red nosed from the cold!

 The albergue is on the 3rd floor of an active monastery.  We stay by virtue of making a donation and in return we get a bunk in a large room for 16, a mass at 5pm, and a communal dinner for all at 7:30pm.  The building is closed between 2:30-4:30pm, and again locked down at 9pm, with the doors not reopening until the next morning at 7:30am.  This will be a trial for the 3 pilgrims who normally leave at 5:30am and with all the pilgrims starting at the same time, it will create a rush for Aldea del Cano!  There’s far more pilgrims than normal – the dorm room is full, as are the ‘special’ 4-5 smaller rooms of 2-3 beds, and some pilgrims are even staying upstairs in the Juvenile dorm!  We’ll have some planning to do for tomorrow’s walk.

Active monastery + albergue

Iris checking out our room

We showered then did our laundry at the outside washing area.  We had doubts if our clothes would actually dry as it was still quite cold outside and dark clouds were looming on the horizon.  The clotheslines were covered, but still….  At 1pm we three went on a futile search to find an open supermarket for some supplies but everything in this drab little town but for a few bars was shut for the holiday.  We shivered our way back to the restaurant by the monastery and had a very nice Menu del Dia for lunch, then nursed a coffee and watch tennis on TV for 2 hours until we could return ‘home’ to the monastery.

7pm – the hospitalero has just informed me that there are only six beds in the albergue in Aldea!  Iris, Philomena and I therefore have decided to take a bus in the morning on to Caceres as the only other accommodation is 9kms past Aldea in Valdesalor and that is sleeping on the gym floor (no mattresses!).  The bus isn’t a bad choice:  Philomena needs to cover some distance in order to make her flight out of Santiago on May 4th, and Caceres is supposed to be a beautiful tourist town so we can make a rest day out of it!

We went down for the monastery’s communal dinner, which was actually quite good – “hearty walking food” was one report.  Soup, salad, bread, fish sticks, and an orange for dessert.  It was topped off by a raging thunderstorm complete with hail!  (luckily I got my laundry in before!!)

Philomena (R) at dinner