September 29, 2019
It’s a rainy Sunday morning in Finisterre. Our plan is to bus to Santiago, stay overnight there and then bus to Ribadiso. We will be staying in Ribadiso for 15 and working as volunteer Hospitaleras. Our stay in Ribadiso is sponsored by the American Pilgrims on the Camino organization. Basically, we will be greeting people who are walking the Frances camino, the 500 mile one that we walked three years ago. (It runs across Spain from France to Santiago which is near the ocean.) Our role there will be to greet people and assist those who are staying at the Ribadiso albuergue. We will be showing them where the showers are, the laundry, the kitchen if they want to cook and where their bed is located. This is the first time we have worked as Hospitaleras.
Not much to do on a rainy morning so it was the perfect time to do laundry. We met Bella from New Zealand who was busy washing clothes and bedding. She is retired and spends a lot of time traveling and decided she needed a place to call home. She bought a small condo in Finnisterre where she stays for a few months each year.
It was rainy and foggy so we took the direct bus into Santiago. It was freeway all the way and not much to see. Tonight we are staying at Pension Santa Cristina. It’s located very close to the San Martin Monastery and the back door of the Cathedral. It’s a quieter part of town than the La Tita in Old Town.
Our room at Pension Cristina was up 3-4 flights of stairs but very comfortable none-the-less. The pension had a small enclosed outdoor patio.
We found a great restaurant.
Grilled ox for dinner tonight.
This dish is called Padron Peppers.
Meet Ellen and George from Seattle. Very interesting people — George is an oceanographer and Ellen a mathematician. They talked a lot about their years working at Texas A&M university. They were thrilled to move back to the Seattle area. They were in Santiago for a relative’s wedding and heading home soon.
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Jane in Spain 