Ribadiso Albergue : Day 11

Meaningful Moment

This handsome one joined me for a beer

My friends wanted to share my tostada

Date	02 Aug 2026 (Sunday)
Weather	Temperature in the high 70s. Partly sunny all day.
Total All Caminos:	2450 miles
Lodging (Deb & I):	Municipal Albergue de Peregrinos de Ribadiso da Baixo (room provided)
Total Lodging:	€ 700
Airplane(s):
Total Airplane(s) / Trvl Insrnc:	$ 1000 / $ 199
Buses / Trains / Taxis & Rides (Deb & I):
Total Transportation:	$ 265
Food (Deb & I):	€ 10 breakfast Meson Ribadiso € 5 Drink and treat evening
Total Food:	$ 561

Random Thought of the Day

Today we are not headed into Arzùa for supplies. So we will be spending the day at the albergue, here in the countryside. It really gives us only one bar to go to before we report for work again at 1:00 p.m. It'll be a morning for thinking and reflection.

Actually we took a walk for dinner together time to the rec area. 

Then we cooked and laid down to rest a while.

Time to head to the reception area to great pilgrims.

A look around the albergue

L to R: showers and laundry, main office, dormitories, special access needs rooms

Notable memories

Took a walk after morning coffee and tostada down to the recreation area, informally called Playa No Playa.

Very pretty little area on the Rio Iso further downstream.

Our morning walk to the recreation area

Today's visitors to the Rio Iso spot

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I remain fascinated by the choices we make in life. One of the interesting things that I love exploring while I'm mixing it up with strangers is the choices in life they have made. Of course, not everyone is ready to share the roads they took. 

I was talking to a young man from the Netherlands. He had checked in to the Spanish hostel where I was volunteering for two weeks. I helped him get settled in. I switched from Spanish to English when it became clear that although Dutch, we could communicate in English. 

Later he was walking around the grounds and we just happened to start up a conversation. 

I think it began as something along the lines of why in a Spanish hostel, there was an English speaker working. After all I had been interacting in Spanish, and then switched to English to help others, and him in particular.

One of the first things I learned was that he was entering University in the Netherlands next semester and that he thought he would do some traveling over the summer. 

So here he was in Ribadiso Spain walking the Camino de Santiago with his friend. That was his idea of travel. Yeah, walking 500 miles over the summer. 

One of the first things that really intrigued me was that he was offered a position in a hostel in the community of Asturias. It was his for the taking if he wanted it. 

I'm stunned when he says that he's thinking of taking the job. 

I believe most everybody, goes through a crunch decision  at least once in their life. Part of becoming an adult is making, for better or worse, richer or poorer, until death do it end, that life-altering, life-changing, life-significant decision of what to do with one's life. 

His was University or cleaning /running an overnight sleeping station for pilgrims, and as a consequence, tending to the physical, spiritual and emotional needs of walkers in search of something unknown until they find it. He was seriously considering the cleaning job.

We talked about the Camino primitivo, a mountainous rugged challenging 7 to 9-day walk across an Iberian mountain range. He told me that they wanted a quiet hike, a peaceful hike, a scenic hike. He told me how half the time, they slept behind churches in their sleeping bags without tents. With permission but with no comfort.

He told me they sought out the mountain ranges to make up for the constant flatness of his home country.

He told me how they walked for days on the Camino Primitivo and saw little to nobody else on the trail. He was wondering what the next few days would be like, having left the Primitivo and now on the Camino Francés.

I could only tell him that he was joining a flood of pilgrims surging towards Santiago de Campostello and that his previous experience would be pointless from here on.

So there you have the gist of the story. A 72-year-old man and a somewhat 25-year-old man. One walking 12 to 15 Mi a day and the other volunteering 12 hours in a hostel. Who is tired and sweaty and exhausted versus someone who is occasionally bored and mentally exhausted from talking in two different languages.

One who is making a decision that will affect his life from here on and another who has made those decisions and lived through the expectations.