Two nights ago I registered some pilgrims who just gave me a bad vibe. I knew they were going to be hard to please. They wanted us to have a dryer (it’s been raining for days) and weren’t happy when we didn’t. When I said, “No, we don’t take cards. I’m sorry,” one said, “Just tell me you don’t take cards; no need to be sorry.” Um…okay.

They hadn’t been here an hour when the same one came upstairs and said, “ We’re leaving. This place is not an acceptable level of clean, and we’d like our money back.” Um…okay.

So I went downstairs and Martin had cleaned the vegetables but not cooked them, so I gave them a full refund and they left.

Last night a pilgrim said, “ What I like best about this place is it’s so clean.” Soren and I just looked at each other and laughed. Then we had to explain.

Last night was my final night here. Today I bus to Madrid.

Tonight I had my first drunk pilgrim. She bought a liter of wine from us and brought two of her own. And then asked me to buy more.

More later. It’s 4 am and the cats decided to fight.

So I know this person is trouble from the beginning. She arrives around 11. We open at 3. I am outside, and within five minutes I learn that on November 11, Putin is going to start WWIII, but it is okay because believers are going to be raptured right before then.

So she writes down her name and then I send her to the bar. I tell Mar, “ The good news is we have a pilgrim. The bad news is he’s crazy.” ( I thought she was a man. Even though the name she wrote down was “Donna.” I cannot tell you how masculine this woman looked and sounded.)

I don’t register her or take her money because I am hoping she’ll change her mind. No. She comes back, and other than telling me she usually stays in hotels it seems like things will be okay.

Mar sells her a bottle of wine, which we sometimes do. She doesn’t know, nor does anyone else, that the woman has two more of her own, which she brings out at dinner.

After the couscous is finished (I had to do my usual “Okay, there’s one bite left; someone take it,” and it wasn’t her) she says she is still hungry. I can’t offer her bread; she doesn’t eat bread. Bread destroys the pineal gland, and no bread is the reason her mother is 87 and her father 91. She is 65, and looks every day of it.

So Martin heats leftover squash patties and some seitan (vegetarian ham) with peppers Mar and I had for lunch. She won’t eat a bite of it. The other pilgrims are waiting for their dessert till she finishes and all she does is flap her jaws and not eat.

Finally a pilgrim who had bought only dessert comes in and I serve. She doesn’t eat sweets. I offer fruit. She doesn’t eat fruit. She finally thanks me for my effort and says she had expected vegetables. I offer to make her a salad. No.

She goes outside. Another pilgrim tells me she drank two liters of wine at dinner (I was there but thought she was sharing those bottles) and a liter before. She is drunk off her butt. So I send Mar a message as a heads up.

Fortunately a lovely German man she gravitated to spends the evening talking to her. I thank him. I had to pray my way through the day, reminding myself she was a child of God, that he loved her, that she deserved kindness, all those things.

Before I go for my walk, she asks me to sit with them, and asks for more wine. I tell her no. It is time for sleeping, not drinking wine. She tells me this is Europe, not Texas, and I need to adjust. I still say no, and fortunately she backs off.

I just went downstairs to get a package, and I think her things are on the drying line. Not dry, because it rained last night. She might still be here. Damn. I’ll update you guys later.

Her bicycle is gone, which means she is gone. Praise and glory be!

It is impossible for me to upload pictures and videos from my computer, so I usually create a draft post on my phone where I upload the images then go to my computer and create the text. For some reason, the post I created on my phone will not show up. If I can get it to I will post the pictures and video. But I had one of those nights that was absolute magic.

It started after dinner with a Japanese man getting out origami paper and teaching us how to make paper cranes. He said they are the symbol of peace, and that he wishes us peace. Then some professional musicians got out a ukulele (belonging to one of them) and guitar (belonging to Mar) and we sang and played under the stars.

The last song was one Gloria, a pilgrim, had written. She was traveling with a large group and when they heard the music they came running to sing along. The guitar player switched to a cajon (wooden box drum) Mar has and drummed while she strummed and sang, “Buen camino, peregrino, hasta a Santiago. Caminando y llorando. Caminando y reirando. Buen camino, peregrino.” In English, “Good journey, pilgrim to Santiago. Walking and crying. Walking and laughing. Good journey, pilgrim.” The most beautiful energy flowed from her and through all of us and I thought, “Yes. This. This is what I want. This makes all the cleaning worth it.”

So you guys get an idea of the albergue and why I’m not writing.

This plus cooking lunch, serving dinner, washing dinner dishes, and setting out breakfast.

I know I haven’t written much lately, but it’s hard to find time when you work twelve and thirteen hour days seven days a week. This is a great life, but it is pretty unrelenting. I told Mar I was going to take Monday as a “me” day. I was going to take the bus to Ponferrada and do some shopping there for things I cannot get in Cacabelos. “Was” is the operative word here.

The only reason I was going to be able to do all of this was because George would be here, so I have been anxiously waiting for him to arrive. Well, George arrived. He found out he would be sleeping with pilgrims for a few days so he left. Mar tried to offer him La Casita, but there isn’t a bed there, just a couch. Other hospitaleros have slept there, but not George. She offered him Martin’s caravan; Martin was willing to sleep in La Casita. Nope. He left. There went my “me day.”

Two of the albergues in Cacabelos closed on the 22nd, so we are getting the overflow. We had eighteen pilgrims tonight. Eighteen! We’ve been running nine on a good day. We had already prepared four extra beds, but we very quickly got four more ready. One man, Gunther, paid for a bed but after about 30 minutes decided to leave. He said something to the woman who made the reservation but nothing to us. He didn’t even ask for his money back. I don’t know what the problem was.

Anyway, I have practically met myself coming and going today. I told Mar that “en la noche, bebo much vino,” but I actually didn’t drink much more than usual. But “usual” here is about two glasses a night. All the longevity quizzes I have taken said I would live longer if I drank more. At the rate I’m going, I’ll live till I’m 100.

I don’t know why posting has been so hard lately, but it has. I’ve been really busy even with Katka here. But today I took a 30 minute walk. Spain sure is beautiful.

Yesterday Mercedes left, and today Ulises. It’s been a rough few days. New volunteers are coming, but I’m not going to be able to go to the village for awhile.

The night before last I felt something in bed with me.

He insisted I pet him, took a bath, and played around the room before settling down again, gradually taking up more and more of the bed. He left when I insisted I deserved most of it.

Two days ago I walked in to Cacabelos and as I passed the albergue municipal, there were men trimming the cedar bushes. The smell was wonderful. I wanted to take their picture because they were using hand tools. In the US it would have been electric clippers and a blower instead of hand trimmer and a rake.

On the way back I passed a delivery truck stopped on the hill going over the bridge. I got the feeling he wasn’t sure he should go up. Finally he decided to do it, and as he started up crates of grapes fell off the back.

I got his attention and gestured. He stopped the truck, got out, saw the mess, and got out his phone. After a brief but energetic call he began picking up the crates.

When I told the story at lunch, attempting to do it in Spanish, they asked, “Did you help?” I explained that no, I didn’t, because in my experience men who might have accepted help from a young woman won’t accept it from an old one. They get embarrassed.

I wanted to take a picture but doing it where he could see would have been beyond rude. So I took a selfie.

Once he got really busy I took this.

The WIFI at home wasn’t good enough to upload the pictures, and yesterday when I got to the library there were three papers waiting so I didn’t have a chance to update.