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Published: June 21st 2009
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Day 15
Sunday 12th April The walk into Laredo was a short one, being only 8km, which was good as we only got stuck in a little rain shower. The albergue took some finding but we got there eventually, with it being tucked in beside a church and run by some lovely nuns. The plan was for Dav and I to stay there the night to give his knee a break as it was playing up pretty badly, and then catch a bus the next day to meet Ben and Lauren in 2 nights time when they arrived in Santander. While it was a bit disappointing for both of us as we would have loved to have been able to walk the whole way, Dav´s knee needed some rest to allow it to heal and we would prefer to bus it ahead and keep on sharing this journey with Ben and Lauren, as compared to falling behind them without the chance to really catch up again for the rest of the trip.
So while they initially planned on continuing to walk further that day, Ben and Lauren ended up staying in
Laredo also, which was nice as the afternoon was filled with card battles and sweet tarts from a nearby bakery, then dinner and again more cards on into the evening. You can probably see a pattern developing here...!
Day 16
Monday 13th April Ben and Lauren were up and off at the crack of 8am, while Dav and I enjoying the pleasure of a sleep-in. It was then off to find a nun and practice my pigeon Spanish in asking if we could stay another night (normally pilgrims are only allowed to stay at albergues for one night, although they do make exceptions for illnesses/injuries in some cases). Luckily the two nuns that I found seemed to understand my method acting and poor Spanish (´amigo .... herrido... (I point to knee and limp around a bit for effect).. possiblay uno mas noche?´ ie friend... injuried.... possible one more night), and so we were okay to spend the extra night there.
With that all sorted out, I headed out to hunt for some food to see us through our stay. The day was glorious - all
sunshine and blue skies - and the town was really nice and so I took my time strolling around in my search for a supermarket. I also checked out the bus station in preparation for our journey on, and then returned to the nest to feed my injured mate.
As you can imagine, the rest of the day was spend eating and watching movies and generally avoiding walking as much as possible. (Being a photographer, Lauren has a portable hard-drive so that she can download all her photos onto it whilst travelling. As a bonus, they also uploaded some movies and TV series onto it, hence our ability to watch movies whilst resting in the nunnery.)
So, for most of the day I was a super girlfriend, nrusing Dav, tending to his every need. The only problem was when it came to dinner where I was a bit of a let-down, even to myself... Ben had left his little gas cooker with us and so I had great plans on making a chicken vegetable stew with slices of baguette, however, when the time came to begin cooking, I realised that we forgot to get
the lighter off Ben, which would have been quite handy. And so dinner that night was a bowl each with corn, peas and chickpeas - all cold and out of a tin or bottle... The first mouthful was alright but if definately didn´t get any better the more we ate... So that, followed by dry bagutte.... Not my best cooking moment!
Day 17
Tuesday 13th April Unfortunately the nice weather went as quickly as it came, with another rainy day greeting us in the morning. Fortunately, all we had to do was walk the 200m to the bus station and hop on the bus taking us to Santander. In Santander, we made out way to the albergue which was shut, but we were attacked by the lady who runs it and who also seems to run a bar a few doors down. So in a flur of Spanish we were herded into the bar to await the opening of the albergue. She was quite a character, speaking flat out at us in Spanish and no matter how many times we explained ´no intindo´ (I don´t understand), she kept
on at us, each time saying the same thing just at a louder volume level...
Ben and Lauren also eventually found their way to the albergue and they too were headed into the bar until opening time, which thankfully wasn´t too much later. So after checking in and a quick shower, we headed off to explore the town, thankful to be out of earshot of crazy lady.
Dinner that night was quite special as we shared it with Gregory, our German friend who was the first Pilgrim we met and was at his end point for this trip, having to finish up and head home back to work. So it was great to be able to share that with him. We also met up with Dan and Andreas, an Italian and German respectively, whom Ben and Lauren had met at the albergue the previous night. They are in the process of writing a guidebook on the Camino Norte (in English, German, Spanish, French and Italian) which is great news as the only good ones available at the moment are in Spanish and German. All in all it was a great meal and quite a
Ahhhh...
- Day 16 - unique way to spend the night - eating Chinese food in a restuarant in Spain, with a dinnerparty made up of Austalians, Germans, and an Italian!
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