Camino Day Thirty-Six- Palas de Rei to Arzua (19.5 Miles)
We started day thirty-six with a lovely breakfast served by an El Salvadorian young lady who served us fruit, toast, coffee, orange juice, and a poached egg over a whipped potato and caramelized onions mix, one of our best breakfasts on the Camino. Our hotel was a previous home over one hundred years old. It was filled with the owner’s fine silver and tableware. It was cozy and warm throughout.
The day would bring us many churches to visit. A church with an lovely folk legend is the Iglesia of Santa Maria in Leboreiro of the Magical Mary, and it persists to this day. It is said the villagers discovered a sculpture of the Mother Mary seated in the local fountain combing her hair. Many times they took it into the church, only to discover that of its own accord, it returned to the fountain. Eventually, the villagers carved an image of Mary on the tympanum (the space between the round arch and the lintel over the the doorway) over the church’s entrance. At last the original sculpture of Mary remained in the church. As recently as the 1960’s local villagers report that this image of Mary would be back in the fountain combing her hair!
We thought the Iglesia de Santa Maria de Melide was very impressive. This jewel had the most energetic docent who started describing all the most important items in the church the second we walked in. He spoke for five minutes and we absorbed as much as we could of his broken English. The altar and the frescos were some of the finest we have seen.
Another memory of this day that will stay with us forever was the strongest pilgrim we have seen. This handicap man was walking the Camino in his electric wheelchair. We came upon him right before a difficult downhill section. As we all started down a man came up the trail and stated that it was too steep and rocky for him to travel. He said he could handle it. We offered to help and he insisted he and his wife were in complete control. Soon after those words he flipped his wheelchair and out he fell. We helped him back in the chair and assisted him down the rest of the way. What willpower and fortitude; it was truly inspirational.
Our hotel in Arzua was top class whether it was in Arzua or any city in America. It was called 1930 Boutique Hotel and it reminded us of the Kimpton Hotels back home with everything thought out to perfection. Because we had had a long walk that day all we did was take a small walk up to the church in town and relaxed in the hotel’s beautiful garden.
We had a very nice dinner up on the third floor with four place settings for hotel guests. It could not have been more intimate.
