Day 11 - Thursday, Oct 8 - Menu del dia for the pilgrims

Buenas Tardes - our journey today was from Palas de Rei to Arzua - a whopping ~ 31 km. Our hiking shoes are now worn, worn in and soon will be worn out! What a pleasant day, a bit warmer than the past few days and we got to wear our sunglasses again - finally! We are back to seeing more grapes, kiwi, pears, apples and walnuts, but still very much in cattle country. Yesterday we even saw a John Deere tractor dealership - can you believe that? There are more pilgrims on the trail, some we have met before, many we have not. We are bit like the tortoise and the hare - we leap forward early in the morning, passing many already on their journey only to be passed by them later as we stop for refreshments and then pass them again further down the trail. We have travelled almost 270 km already with only two days to go. Although none of us will admit this, we are all a bit weary, especially after todays' longer journey, and looking forward to our arrival in Santiago. It is a true test of ones' mental and physical endurance. We discover as much about ourselves as the countryside we are walking through and appreciate the opportunity to be here and doing this journey. Yesterday, we passed a little 12 century church. A blind priest there felt his way around the outside of the church to point out an original carved sign of the cross that was placed in the wall when the church was built. The fact that this church is still standing is amazing. They often have a mass in the villages for the pilgrims, yesterday was no exception, it was mostly in Spanish with a bit of English. It confirms the importance that the pilgrims play in influencing the local economy and that we are recognized for the journey we are making. There have been so many spectacular cathedrals that we have seen. Some are very plain and some quite elaborate, each with it's own history, quite remarkable really. We learned that Melide is the place to enjoy octopus. So we tried it for lunch. Let's just say, some enjoyed the dish immensely, others not so much. Something about those suction cups at the end of the tentacles that is just not that appealing. They cook it in a big pot and sprinkle olive oil and paprika over it and serve it with toothpicks - it is the local delicacy, I will not be requesting the recipe to try it at home. Oh, remember, we talked about on day 10 realizing that we could ask for butter to go with the large pieces of bread they serve us at every meal, well we tried that twice today and neither restaurant had butter to go with our bread, go figure. As we were trying to locate one of our colleagues that took the bus to Melide, we noted that there were two Camino signs going in different directions. The one we followed lead us to some road construction. One short, seemingly friendy Spanish fellow tried to direct us to the Camino trail (we realized that we were almost out of the city and wanted to back and try the octopus). Initially, he was gently pointing the direction of the Camino and tell us where we had to go in rapid Spanish, we were trying to thank him and tell him that we wanted to go back and eat. Soon he was trying to shoosh us out of the city, waving his hand toward the trail and raising his voice as if to say, you fools - are you stupid or what? -- the Camino is that way! Finally he gave up and shrugged his hands at us, probably thinking, why bother! We saw him a bit and he was still shaking his head at us as we were heading back into the city for lunch. It made us wish that we spoke more Spanish so we could explain better what we wanted to do. Someone in the group mentioned, halfway through the day, that the trek was quite flat to that point. Well it quickly changed after that with some quite steep inclines, it had all of us huffing and puffing by the time we got to the top. Finally, after 7 and 1/2 hours on the trail, we reached Arzua. It seems to be quite large, although it is only a population of 6300. After our showers and clean clothes, we gather in one of our rooms to discuss the events of the day before we head off for supper. We have learned that the handle of the plastic spoon placed in the neck of a wine bottle, will prevent the cork (and many cork pieces) from getting into your glass. Well, ideally, you would have removed the cork from the bottle, but as this did not happen and the cork was plunged into the bottle, this was a good improvise. We decide that the restaurant that offered home cooked menu del dia was the place for us to have supper. We studied our choices, the first plate (so for us in Canada - that may be an appetizer), well you can expect it to be anything from a omlet with mushrooms, to spaghetti, noodles with mushrooms and prawns, salad or soup. The second plate - would be your main course, here you could be offered white asparagus with cheese, eggs with chorizo, ham or bacon or even tongue, pork, chicken, or beef (to name a few options) and then dessert. The cook enticed us to come in and she readied a table for 7. Then the waitress questioned us to see what we wanted for the first course, and proceeded to tell us what was recommended - vegetable soupa. We wanted to know what our other choices were and asked her about the options posted on the outside of the restaurant - only to find out some of those items were for yesterday's menu del dia. She then again (in her broken English) proceeded to recite again what our options were for today. One of the colleagues went to chat with a group of non-English speaking patrons to find out what they had and if it was good. All of us were ready to leave and find a new restaurant, but the report from the other patrons enticed us to stay. We were glad we did as the meal was delicious and although we may not have gotten what we originally wanted, all of us left satisfied and full. We got a picture with the cook and the waitress and a big thank you. She invited us for breakfast tomorrow. The whole episode left us laughing about what happened and the outcome. The bonus is that we met a retired nurse (Susan and her husband Brian) from Saskatoon and heard about their journey. Now we must rest as tomorrow will be an equally long journey, but will bring us one day closer to Santigo. The weather is supposed to hold out until Saturday afternoon (we will be in Santigo by then). Buenas noches, hasta luego, Sandy