A day in Almería

We slept OK in the hostel, there were a couple of other people in the room, the French girl was a bit noisy but she quietened down before it got too late. The showers were good, but the WiFi was dodgy, as in Google warned me that I shouldn't join it.

We didn't have to check out until 11 a.m., but there was no reason to stay, and we both wanted breakfast, so we checked out about 8 am. The sun was shining, and the city was waking up. It didn't take long to find a café that had opened early, and so we got the classic camino breakfast of tostada and coffee.

We would not be able to get into the albergue, La Estrella del Camino, until much later in the day, so we had a lot of time to fill.

We decided to go and find where the cathedral was, as that would be the starting point for the camino tomorrow. It is quite an impressive building, much more like a fortress than a cathedral. It is the only cathedral in España that doesn't have a cupola. The flat roof was designed to help hide it from pirates sailing by.
Any pirate would have been mad to try, as I said it's built like a fortress.

The history and culture of modern España have been shaped as much by its Muslim part as by its Christian one. Moorish names and architecture are everywhere in the city. I wanted to visit the moorish Fort (The Alcazaba) at the top of the hill above the city.

It was a bit of a climb, especially with our heavy backpacks, but it was worth it. Entry was free, and it was quite busy. The architecture and history were fascinating, and the views were amazing, but surprisingly, there was no gift shop. The toilets, however, were terrible, not bad, terrible.

We wandered back into town, heading for the seafront, thinking we could find a bench to sit at and get our towels dry in the fierce heat of the sun. Instead, we stopped at an outdoor cafe and had a fabulous lunch. Afterwards, we were almost at the seafront when the hospitalera from Albergue messaged us to say we could drop off our backpacks is we wanted to, and boy, did we want to.

We met the hospitalera, whose name was Nely, and she turned out to be a mine of information about the Mozárabe. It turns out that booking albergues is essential in some places on the route. Not all are manned, and if we didn't book for Saturday and sunday before 2 pm on the Friday, we wouldn't get in. Some needed to be booked 2 weeks in advance. She even called some and booked them for us. We were so glad that we had decided to stay with her.

She took us to the cathedral for the pilgrim blessing service that evening. It was a lovely service, and I found it quite moving when the priest prayed for the six people about to embark on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, with a response from the congregation.

It was very different from my faith tradition, but it made me wonder if we are missing something of the mystery of Christ and the glory of God in our services.

We all had our Compostelas stamped by the priest and would begin the camino in the morning.Leggi altro