A short day, but the stretch between Salamanca and Zamora doesn’t divide up very nicely. Some folks do it in days of 35 and 32 km. I’ve decided to do it in three days, so I get two easy days before the hard one! The other challenge was being evicted from the albergue at 0730 by the ‘warden’ when the air temperature was a meagre 3⁰. Gerard and I found the earliest opening bar in the entire city at 0800, and nursed our coffee for an hour until the sun came up and warmed the air a little.
The actual walk was not spectacular. The first few km was leaving the city, and then it was full on meseta: big agricultural countryside, which is a nice change, but I’m sure the novelty will wear off.
The most interesting aspect of the day was stopping for a coffee in a village along the way. I ordered a coffee then proceeded to the washroom, not noticing in the dark that I’d inadvertently gone into the women’s. My mistake was very soon corrected by the bar’s proprietor pounding on the door. Thereafter he gave me grief for using the washroom when I wasn’t a customer ( he has a very thick accent combined with a raspy voice – there was no way I could decipher what he was saying! Once I got my coffee there was no way I was going to take it to a table outside! I tried to pay, he continued to quiz me (I think), and I drank my coffee while leaving a 10 Euro note on the bay to signal my good intent. Eventually, once he told me the price, I added 40 cents to make the change easier. He continued to ‘ babble’ at me ( even though it was only 1030 he consumed two beers while I was there, which may have some bearing on the proceedings. Through lots of smiling and arm waving, he was excited to have a Canadian in his bar, and at the end gave me all the money and insisted that the coffee was on the house! Definitely the most interesting coffee stop of my Camino!
2saunter 