Snoring

​15th September 

Last night we had a Spanish man in our Albergue who snored so loud that people were dragging their mattresses out of the bedroom and sleeping in the bathrooms and on the kitchen worktop. I think he suffered from sleep apnea or something. It was ridiculous, we didn’t get any sleep. The girls were all outside at 1am, I eventually found some earplugs and got a bit of sleep but not much. 

We left at 6.30am with a couple of other pilgrims in tow as we walked up through the forest in the dark. There were two steep hills to climb and the early morning air was warmer than the previous day. The sun came up sometime after 8 and there was that perfect temperature that only lasts a while before the heat starts to get more and more uncomfortable. I walked with Steph for the remainder of the morning with the others catching up at break points. Thankfully the shade of the trees and a bit of cloud cover helped keep it cooler than yesterday. 

At one point we approached what looked to be rows of chicken houses but as we got closer I noticed that the white creatures that were bobbing up and down in the wire crates were actually mink. We were glad to get past the mink farm which stank from all the dung that piled up under the cages.  

After 10km we stopped at a cafe run by a slightly mad old lady. I waited ages to get served whilst she messed around selling camino tat to some tourists. After the tourists finally had their picture taken with her she decided to take our breakfast order of toast and hot drinks. She then followed me outside and made sure I put my feet up on one of the stools provided before going back in to sort out our toast. When it finally arrived it was just bread and jam, not toasted at all. 

Beth and Amy caught us up at the cafe. They had a cat in tow that had followed us from the Albergue for 10km. The crazy old lady chased the cat off with one of my walking poles but it just came back after she went back inside. 

We walked the remaining 12km as it was starting to get warm. My heat rash was beginning to flare up badly and I changed into clean socks at another cafe that had a full size dinosaur outside along with a large statue of st James. The Albergue is another municipal one. This time it’s a much larger 42 bed place with a lot more space. We took beds at one end of the room along with a few other pilgrims in the hope that the snorer and his friends will go up the other end if they turned up. Sure enough they turned up and got a bit defensive at out groans of disappointment. The only word a managed to catch was ‘natural’ I don’t think there’s anything natural about that. I’m laying in bed now and it sounds like someone slowly revving up a motorbike. I’ve booked a private room for tomorrow.