Depart Time: 8:45. Temp: 63F RH: 95%
Walked: 5.6 mi. Camino 2024: 292 mi.
We said our goodbyes to Santiago this morning and stepped out into the rain. What a difference a day makes. Yesterday we walked without a drop of rain until we reached our destination. Today we walked in light or heavy rain the entire morning until it finally stopped just as we reached our destination.
Consequently, we didn’t get many photos during the walk as Jim and the iphone get wet whenever he tried to get the phone out of his pocket and snap a photo.
We walked into Arca and entered the reception area for a large pencion amply called “Pencion Residential Platas”. Because we know the drill, we asked the receptionist when was the next shuttle to Pencion CHE.
This was not the case on our first stay at Pencion CHE. The Booking.com directions were inadequate, to say the least. We ended up walking several miles around Arca and surrounding neighborhoods getting faulty directions, because no one in Arca seemed to know where Pencion CHE was either.
It seems that an enterprising Spaniard who is known by the name CHE, owns a number of properties such as restaurants, and residental, which all go by the name CHE, ex. CHE1, CHE2, …CHE5, and Pencion CHE.
On our first stay we eventually ended up asking an employee at one of the restaurants CHE (CHE2, I think) where to check in, and she thought we might get our answer at Pencion Residential Platas reception… which we did.
Today, the receptionist said she would be glad to take us in her car… to Pencion CHE which is just outside the nearby village of Amenal!
We were the first arrivals at 12:00. We ordered lunch which was prepared by one of the restaurant CHE’s and delivered to us at Pencion CHE about 20 minutes later. While we were eating our lunch, our packs were delivered, further confirmation we were in the right place. Our room was ready as we finished lunch and the rest of our afternoon became pretty much routine, including ordering and receiving our pizza for dinner.
And, did you guess?, the receptionist at Pencion CHE recognized Linda from last year.
Yesterday we forgot to mention an interesting Camino experience we had. With about a mile to go before arriving in Salceda, a group of 30 or so non-pilgrims (no packs, no poles, clean/new clothes, well groomed hair) unloaded from a large bus and joined us on the Camino. Linda and Jim got separated by the large group, as happens sometimes.
Linda was approached by a couple from North Carolina and Jim began chatting with a couple from Great Britain.
Both parties began asking us a variety of questions about the Camino, why we were doing it, what was it like, was this section typical of all the Camino, was the food good, etc. While Jim’s couple were walking faster he got ahead of Linda by several hundred yards, but merrily kept answering questions until he realized how much they were separated. He wished the couple a Buen Camino and excused himself to go back and rejoin Linda.
Linda, in the course of being interviewed learned early on that this was a group from a cruise ship that had docked off a Northern Spain port and this was an excursion as part of their cruise… they were only walking 2.5 miles on the Camino and interacting with pilgrims as they walked.
When Jim rejoined Linda, by now the cruise ship excursion had moved on, she clued him in on who they were and a couple of minutes later, we came to the turnoff leading to Albergue Turistico Salceda.
One more thing:
We heard that there were plans to film part of a Camino reality show at Pencion CHE today. We haven’t seen anything like that as of 7:00 p.m. Upon further investigation Jim and his translation app were able to talk to tonight’s receptionist who played a cameo role checking someone into the hotel. It’s a Spanish film, for Spanish television only and will be televised in November. Sadly we had to decline any potential offers to participate due to previous commitments.
Two more days to Santiago!!
Jimandi 