Betanzos to Presedo

23 September 2019

CAMINO INGLES DAY 5

We started the day with breakfast at Hotel Garelos. It cost about 5E and included the usual assortment of breads, meat, cheese, fruit, cereals, yogurt, juice and coffee. No eggs.

Most of the people in the breakfast room were from Spain or Europe.

Terry is working on today’s route with the guidebook and our South African friends Annette and Henk are getting ready for their walk.

It’s very common for hotels to offer a buffet type breakfast.

This is a residence complex. Today is a very strenuous hike uphill.

“There’s no glory in climbing a mountain if all you want to do is get to the top. It’s experiencing the climb itself — in all its moments of revelation, heartbreak, and fatigue — that has to be the goal.” Karyn Kusama, American Film Director

Mural to Fatima on the Terrace Wall

You know you’re going the right way when a pilgrim image is pointing to the direction.

By the time we reached the railroad tracks, the climb was almost over.

We always stop to smell the roses and other flowers.

These looks like Fuchia and they are growing wild here.

This looks like a holly tree with a rose growing in front of it. We have seen a wide variety of flowers and plant life … even succulents growing in this area.

Not sure what these are but I love the purple color.

Finally a nice road, in the tranquil country side and it’s not uphill.

A little river breaks up the walk giving us something new to look at.

On the edge of town, we start to see houses and guard dogs. This one doesn’t look too ferocious.

Entering the town of Cos and a pile of timber waiting to be moved.

Lovely old chapel in the Parroquia San Esteban De Cos. The courtyard of the church grounds was open but not the church itself.

Sheep grazing in the field. Presedo is getting closer.

The view of a hillside village can be seen from the Camino.

Dos cerveza por favour! Time for another stamp in the credential. We need to obtain two stamps per day in order to receive our Compostela at the end of the Camino in Santiago. It is suppose to prove that we walked it.

These are the door markers for the men’s and ladies rest rooms at the little tavern we stopped at. I had to look twice to figure it out — the Lady is blowing smoke rings with a cigarette. The man has a pipe.

Terry missed the signage. She excitedly reported that the bathroom had a “squatty-pottie”. I didn’t think so but took a second look anyway. It was the Men’s room and it had a floor urinal — no squatty-pottie. We had a good laugh and I was relieved to hear that Terry had used the correct restroom and not the squatty.

Beautiful yard full of flowers on the way to Sequero.

Not sure what these clusters of pine are but in this area we saw them hanging in a few places.

Finally — the outskirts of Presedo. We were very tired because of the steep hills. We had planned to stay at the Presedo Albuergue, which is the only place in town to stay. It has only 16 beds and it’s first come. We are slow walkers and were pretty sure that we would not get beds. Our good friend Begonia from our Betanzos hotel had called ahead to reserve beds for us. She was told that there was a big party in town and that we should not plan to stay there. We made reservations at Nogallas Hostal in the nearby town of Ordes and would have to take a cab back and forth.

We did walk by the Presedo albuergue and there was a line of pilgrims waiting around 2:00 pm. The albuergue never opened. The “party” we had been forewarned of was a feast day celebration for San Antonio who was probably the patron saint of the area.

Our end stop for the day was at a funky restaurant called Mesón-Museo. It was calling us.

We were so ready for some vino tinto.

This is Caldo Gallego. It is a specialty soup with potatoes, greens and chicken broth.

I also had cuddlefish served on potatoes. Terry had a salad mixta and a chickpea & sausage soup that reminded me of Pozole.

This is our cab driver Maria. She is a friend of Begonia from our hotel in Betanzos. The next two towns also had very small Albuergues. We decided not to take a chance getting stuck without beds so we booked the Nogalles hotel in Ordes for three nights. Maria was going to drive us back and forth to our end and starting points.

This is the strangest dinner ever. It was in the small dining room of the Nogallas hotel. We’re not sure what the attendant was trying to tell us but we ended up with a casserole kind of thing. It was a combination of potatoes, green beans and a hard boiled egg cut in half. Add the bread and that was dinner. We had a big lunch that day, so it was fine. Don’t think I’d order it again.

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