May 16th, 2017
Comilla to Camping La Paz
Km walked: 38
Total km: 356
We are not staying at another Alburgue. We just can’t do it anymore.
After we got back from grocery shopping last night we went up to our beds and found an old man with nothing on but some tighty-whities and flip flops, flappy stomach all hanging around, talking real loud to someone else in French in the bed next to him.
The Alburgues are full of men exactly like this: old guys in their 60s that have no regard for personal space or decency. As we were trying to sleep around 9, the lights were turned off (but it was still bright enough to see inside the room because the sun hadn’t set yet), and one of these old jamokes comes into the room, turns these obscenely bright lights on to find something in his bag for one second, and then just leaves the room without turning the lights back off. It’s small stuff like this which makes you think these people have absolutely zero regard for anybody else sharing the room. Or they are just morons.
We were thrilled upon entering the Alburgue initially because there were two open beds near a window. But when we got back after the grocery store, someone had blown their air mattress up and placed it right next to Carolyn’s bed immediately below the window.
“So sorry,” a guy with white hair in a Dutch accent said. “There was, uh, a mix up with the beds, and I didn’t get one- they overbooked, so now I sleep on the ground here.”
Carolyn looked like she was going to rip someone’s head off and just stared at the guy, in disbelief and anger.
I chimed in: “Oh, not a problem.” Always the polite one. Something I hate about myself. “It’s fine.”
No it isn’t.
Before lights out the guy next to Carolyn got ready for bed and proceeded to close the window. Carolyn was not happy. She looked at me and rolled her eyes and whispered, “Are you freaking kidding me?”
“Um, excuse me. Can we leave one of the doors on the window open? It’s hot in here,” Carolyn asked the man.
“I’d prefer not because of the mosquitoes,” he replied blankly.
Mosquitoes! Really? We have not seen a single fucking mosquito here. But okay. We will close the window, to ward off all these mosquitoes, and instead sweat to death in this stupid hotbox of a room.
At this point, at least two people were snoring, and they guy who flicked the lights on earlier was at his old tricks again, flicking them back on, blinding everyone in the room.
Carolyn hopped back into bed without further arguing with the guy who was afraid of all the fictitious mosquitoes, and sighed deeply.
The guy eventually did open one of the Windows, perhaps feeling like an idiot or bad about himself after being an ass.
It was tough to fall a asleep. My clothes stuck to me in the hot room, and at least 4 people snored, one very loudly, like he was choking on a frog or in fact dying.
We both woke up this morning exhausted and aggravated.
“I’m not doing that anymore,” Carolyn said.
“Agreed,” I said back.
The walking today was a little better. We had views of some pretty impressive mountains called the Picos to our south. I dreamed of being up in them instead of on the highway. What was the point of this “trail” again?
We did our longest day yet, 38 km, or about 24 miles, to end at a campsite, the Camping La Paz. It was worth coming here and is the best camping spot we’ve had so far on this trip. It’s tucked into a hillside up above the ocean, and there are cliffs and a small cove with a beach. It’s very scenic.
Tomorrow it is going to rain a lot. Over an inch is forecast for tomorrow starting around late morning and lasting until the morning the day after.
We are only 10km from the next large town, Llanes, and booked a room there for the night. We have been going at it for almost two weeks with our shortest day being 13 miles, so a nice 6 mile nero into town tomorrow will be nice. It will also be nice to avoid the rain. Hiking in the rain is the worst. But not as worse as sleeping in an Alburgue.
