Good morning, world. It's still dark out, and I'm leaving the albergue municipal at Neda. There's some little birds waking up and chirping to my right and walking from the new town to the old town. There's a bunch of cars, mostly bakery trucks, skirting up and down the road, and I just had my first local bread in a town that's super well known for its bread. There's this delicious whole grain bread with a real thick almost like a German crust of bread, and it was a tostada, so I was given tomato pulp in the fete violiga, extra virgin, Spanish olive oil. It sort of seeps into the cracks of the bread, but the crust is so thick, what's nice is it doesn't go through to the other side, so you can still hold it. And then pulp of tomato and then a little bit of salt sprinkled on top of that, and a slice of cheese for some protein for the morning.
 I slept really well, really deeply in this communal albergue in a co Ed room has about 25 beds, and there was a light shining right in my face, so I managed to hold my cap over my eyes, my beanie that blocked out the light pretty well. But I must have been really tired, because I just conked out around 9pm and slept till about six, and it was delicious. I spent some time this morning talking to one of the bakers, learning about all the different fans, pan de Neda, what makes it so special? And one of the theories is the water in the river that's used to make the bread from the river right down below, which, at first glance, is sort of perplexing, because there's huge mounds of sort of rotting seaweed on both sides of the river. So the water doesn't look very clean, but apparently it is, and it's also a potable and I'm sure it's filtered, but that's what the town drinks, and that's what makes their bread so special, just like the water is what makes the classic Spanish beer Estella Galicia, which is from the city of A Coruña so special is their water.
So far, the demographic is super different than what you see on the Camino Francés. I have met exclusively Spaniards and Argentinians. So far about half and half. And then there were two German women from northern Germany last night in the albergue.Â
So one of the desires and intentions behind walking this week was to immerse myself in Castellano an in Spanish as much as possible, and to continue that journey as I grow into my role as a facilitator and workshop leader in Spain. So that feels really nice to just be surrounded by Spanish 24/7. there's a woman from Madrid, there's a woman from Bilbao and then a bunch of folks from Buenos Aires. There's also a father and a son that was pretty amazing. They took off before me, and the father's got to be in his early 80s. His son is probably in his mid 50s, and the father's backpack is probably twice as large as the sons. And they just took off. They had some little biscuits for breakfast and then started walking.Â
So I'm just walking by panaderia (bakery) after panaderia, bakery after bakery. Right now, you look inside and you see this freshly dusted pointed it's like a baguette, but it's pointed on both ends, and it's warm and crusty and really delicious.
have a wonderful day, all, wherever you may be!
Comments