Hornillios - Honatas

24.04.19

After the discussion Malcolm, Alfred (a German we met) and myself had over our evening meal the previous night, I was relieved that Carolin ate breakfast. You see, the day before she hadn't eaten properly - probably causing her dizziness. We had talked about our options if worse came to worse. Would we have to send her on ahead or even home? If she wouldn't have started eating properly, I wouldn't have had a choice. Her health and wellbeing are my number one priority. She would have hated me...thankful it wont come to that!

When we left our albergue this morning it was already raining. After half an hour or so, would you believe it, SNOW. That's right. It's end of April and we got stuck in a blizzard. Ponchos, fleeces, gloves and hats weren't enough to protect us from the ruthless elements we were facing that day. I was swiftly drenched. The icy wind froze my gloves to my hands and my hand to my hiking stick. When I tried to open my hand I couldn't. I couldn't feel them anymore - just numb pain.

Every "snowflake" (more like little daggers) stung my face. I tried cheering everyone up a little by "singing" (if I dare call it that) a song from The Hobbit - The Misty Mountains Cold. It seemed fitting at the time. And it worked, for a little while. Right up to the point where even I couldn't look on the bright side - my shoes were soaked! A Pilgrim's worst nightmare. You can't walk in wet shoes. 

I hope you enjoy this clip of us failing at Pilgrim basics - in our defence it was very windy 

Malcolm went on ahead (there was no way I could keep up - my knee was bad again) in search for the next village. His shoes were drenched too - as were Carolin's. We made the decision to stay in the next albergue we could find, only 10km away from where we started.

It was barely 11am when we stumbled into Honatas. The albergue was still closed so we sat down in the Cafe and treated ourselves to some hot chocolate and a little later, early lunch. Lillian was also here. As were Fred and Gordon (but we wouldn't know that till later that evening) today would be the last time we saw them. I would have given anything for one more beer with my Scotsmen! Buddy (his name is Victor but you know) sat down with us that evening.

We had payed for our Tea when we arrived so I was gobsmacked when the "waiter" demanded we pay. Even after explaining the situation he demanded we give him the money (the other pilgrims were watching this scene unfold and I was getting both embarrassed and angry). I stood up and snapped at him that the receipt was in my Pilgrim's passport and I didn't appreciate him accusing me of lying. This must have left an impression as he finally dropped the subject and left.

In this albergue they expected us to leave our shoes outside. Under normal circumstances I would have gladly followed this rule but, there was no way my shoes would get dry out there. As a room (eight of us) we decided to sneak our shoes in and hide them under the beds in an attempt to get them dried by morning. Thankfully no one seemed to notice.