Bulking up in Zubiri

Doing the bare minimum to read between the lines, you'll have determined I was in a weird mood arriving to Zubiri, which was not helped by checking into the supposed to be €8 albergue and getting charged 14. I fear the days of this being a viable pilgrimage are over, and I think all these price hikes are recent, because we got given a sheet in SJPP with all the albergues and prices and it's not lining up.

Cold, feeling ripped off, flirting with glumness, I recalled the age old wisdom that a feed probably helps. I went to a warm bar and got LOTS of delicious calories. A pilgrim I'd leapfrogged a few times on the trail today was in there too and he came over to introduce himself. Luca, the Roman osteopath, proceeded to bitch about the price of everything which cheered me right up, as did his face when I pulled the party trick of switching to Italian.

After plodding through my enormous meal with the same slow pace and determination I walk with, I felt ready to face the albergue again. On my return I had the worst shower of my entire life and could not connect to the wifi, cracked it, and went straight back out for a wine.

It all perked up in the end, on the way back I ran into Luca and another Italian I'd met coming into Zubiri, and we hung out for the next few hours around the table with Nicole the private school teacher from London and Rusty the Australian and another guy. My Italian is better than Lucas' English so we tried to speak that so he could practice.

Rusty's bank card has been cancelled, not because of transactions here but just awful hack timing. They're sending him a new card but on the Camino that's not super helpful. I spent about 45 minutes trying to get his new card on Samsung Pass so he could use his phone instead, before we realised he could potentially just transfer money to a pilgrim and they could withdraw cash for him. So began the potentially highly suspect Bank of Lexie. It was quite a wad, please pray as I do that this is an example of the Camino spirit. In Rusty we trust.Leggi altro