A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to Santiago.......

You might get the impression from some of my blogs that this walk is all about pain and suffering (and bad food). However, it is also puntuated with sudden and unexpected acts of kindness, beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and various amusing incidents either happening directly to me or people I am with or related as stories by other pilgrims we meet. ¨M¨- (name changed to protect the guilty). Wonderful lady with great sense of humour. However, at every albergue, she seemed to manage to leave things behind. First albergue it was her shorts, next albergue was her toiletries. A little later, a pair of walking trousers were inadvertantly ¨stolen¨ by a young Spaniard (she´d left them hanging up as they were wet and he took them in the dark thinking they were his!) Luckily, she was finishing her walk at Logrono. We were a bit worried that if she kept going, she would be walking in her pyjamas or worse! In many albergues, the beds are bunk beds. One even had 3 tiers. Great for the snorer´s symphony as you can fit more people in each room! In one small town (lucky us, we arrived on fiesta night), I shared a bunk with a very friendly Spanish cyclist. I had the bottom bunk and he the top one. However, the weight range for the beds was listed on the side and he suddenly looked very guilty and said he might weight more than that! Being of a generous nature (think self-preserving), I offered to swap with him. His response gave me a good laugh - he declined to swap and asked me if my life insurance was paid up! We left the discussion agreeing that if the slats started to bend, we would swap. I safely spent the entire night on the bottom bunk. However, nobody got any sleep due to the fiesta which went on all night. I did try to warn the others at my end of the room that this would happen but they just didn´t believe me. Now they know!!