It’s a Wonderful Day for a Bidet!
So good!
Day 31, Negreira to Olveiroa
It’s a magical moment to open the bathroom door and see a bidet, and a wonderment in a threadbare hotel on the Camino. It’s so civilized. I am reminded of a little song I sang in Italy while on the Via de Francesco: it’s a wonderful day for a bidet, today, it’s a wonderful day for a bidet!
Perhaps a review of the month is needed for perspective. In the last month, I have used toilets with no seat. Toilets with no toilet paper. Toilets where the smell was so foul I was sure another life form used it. Toilets with no light in the WC, which sadly opened onto the dormitory and the 12 others who also used it, meaning, the door never closed and we shared a level of intimacy they don’t write about in travel brochures. I have gone up the down stair case, over the river and through the woods, here there and everywhere in search for a toilet, and then spent many a puzzling moment wondering: how the hell do you flush this thing? More than once the change that fell out of my skort onto the bathroom floor stayed there rather than touch it, or even wash it, the floor was so foul. I’ll stop the retrospective there and say again, a bidet is a wonderful thing.
We awake to drizzle after more than 30 days of no rain on the trail. While Greece and California go up in flames and Seattle hits the 90’s, we continue with unseasonably cool weather. It’s an unbelievable godsend, and watching the regional news I am immediately relieved of a fear I hadn’t thought to entertain. Fire.
The tenor of the trail has changed substantially since Santiago, and although there are groups, Sandy and I are often alone. It now feels familiar, a coastal vibe a lot like walking the back streets of Cannon Beach or Seaside. Hydrangea. Crocosmia. Grape vines. Ferns. Drizzle. But the occasional big ol’ palm tree reminds me, home is a long ways away.
See below for a few photos and descriptions below.
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Leaving Negreira.
About that. If this is the marker leaving town and we only have two days to go . . . ouch!
They have the best road side cemeteries here. The drizzle adds a certain je ne sais quoi.
Coastal flowers.
A group of nuns, including the Mother Superior.
The Spanish make it look so cool to be dead.
Am I right?
It was a 35km day and this welcome sign announced our stopping point.