Day 7 -- Fonfria to Samos

June 9
18 km

Ode to my boots
Tevas are to boots as a thong is to a girdle. Give me the girdle--I need the support! I´m back in my boots, and I love it. I feel like a walking tree. The boots make short work of mud, rocks, and steep inclines. As I walked out this rain-washed morning, I had not one god but two: my left boot and the right.

No room at the inn
By 3 pm yesterday the Albergue da Reboleira was packed to the rafters. They were turning people away, even though it´s the only albergue in town. Some pigrims were allowed to pitch their tents or lay down sleeping pads in the garage.

It was hard to see pilgrims turned away as the rain began. The water ran in torrents off the roofs, made up of rounded pieces of slate that look like fish scales. The narrow street became a stew of mud, straw, and cow dung. The German shepards, off duty now, looked for shelter under eaves.

But the pilgrims had to keep going, and the closest town was Triacastela, 20 km down the muddy mountain.

People were grumbling that the albergue was letting non-pilgrims take up valuable bunk space. In municipal albergues, only pilgrims can stay, and it´s first come first served. Private albergues can do whatever they want, and often allow reservations and accomodate tourists. It was galling to see the woman in the bunk next to me with a suitcase instead of a backpack (she´d come by car), when walkers were turned away.

But I did happen on this albergue on the right night. Once a year they celebrate the Fiesta del Peregrino, and they made all 50 or 60 of us a free dinner of many delicious courses, beginning with a plate of embutidos (cold cuts, with many kidns of chorizo and ham) and ending with torta de Santiago, a moist almond cake.

Regulating the Camino
This morning, sipping coffee and talking with the young South African woman about the albergue situation, she had a proposal:

¨They should have a computer system that links all the albergues on the camino. There should be only 3 or 4 places where you can officially start your pilgrimage, and they should regulate the number of people they allow on the Camino. That way everyone would be guaranteed a place to sleep."

This idea comes courtesy of a pilgrim who pays to have her pack transported from albergue to albergue, and who has a manner oddly imperious for someone so young and not in keeping with the usual demeanor of pilgrims. Lounging on her bunk last night, she motioned over an Italian man now living in Germany. "I forget you name," she said, "but could you do me a favor? Could you take my cell phone and plug it into that outlet across the room?"

The man looked at me, and I made a crack about the princess in her tower. But he took her phone and did what she asked. "Don´t forget to make sure the red line comes on," she called after him.

Her proposal at breakfast seemed like such a classic example of an outsider coming in with misguided ideas of order and then mucking everything up (not to mention a misunderstaing of the inherent and necesssary messiness of something like a pilgrimage)that I had no answer for her.

Later, walking in the Galician mist, I thought of a reply. "You know how some parts of the camino are steep and rocky, and some people fall? They should eliminate the danger by having pilgrims ride elevated tramways over those sections."