Day 7 – Strange Albergue Aromas !

A short walk of just 12 Km took us the to the next small  one horse, one Bar town.

On our arrival the Bar owner kindly directed us to the nearest Albergue where we tucked Dickie up in bed with a can of flat coke and a KitKat to help increase his blood sugar levels.

With little else to do, we spent the rest of the day held up in the local Bar, checking every couple of hours to make sure he was okay.

By early afternoon other pilgrims started to arrive. We struck up a conversation with ‘Piret’ a very friendly Estonian lady who began her Camino in Seville during Holy Week…quite amazingly she spoke 7 languages.

After chatting for a while she whispered across the table “did you notice that awful smell in our Albergue ?” ….”no idea” we all replied perhaps a bit too quickly , then Mark sloped off to check on Richard again.

Pilgrims Walter and Tommy , second cousins from South Carolina USA kept most of us entertained for the rest of the afternoon. Tommy, sporting a rather fetching white handle bar mustache, was a US Navy veteran waxing lyrical with John about his days serving on the aircraft carrier USS Independence as an engineer.
Walter, his second cousin has walked most of the Camino routes and also generously given his time as a Hospitalro in one the religious “Donitivo” Albegues on the Frances route.

Sharing photos and stories from their child hood days , Tommy spoke about his fathers tobacco chewing spittoon expertise and how he could of hit  a barking dog… “Rart between the eyes ” at 20 paces.

Tommy very kindly gave Richard some Diorilote power which, along with the sugary coke helped him feel well enough to join us at dinner for a couple of hours.

Meanwhile, Tony was suffering now from a chesty cold and discovered that the inhaler he rarely has to use is out of date and doesn’t work.

So all in all we have been quite unprepared for ailments this week. Next time our first aid kit needs to be more than a large jar of Vaseline and a packet of Compedes.

We all agree that our priority for tomorrow is to get to ‘Zomora’ the closest large town and find the nearest Phamacie.