Day 22- 23 Ponferrada to Trabadelo/ Trabadelo to Hospial de la Condesa

Day 22

2 days passed since my last blog post. Yesterday i was in no state to write and it was probably better as i was in a really bad form.it all started with my Saturday night. so like i had mentioned before small and villages are great. you have dinner together you meet new people but in bigger cities everyone gets separated. so while everyone was cooking together i started to feel really lonely so i decided i will have an early night. i had shared my room with a French lady and a German one. our room was next to the bathroom so for the whole night i listened people going for a shower or toilet. around 9 a large group arrived and they were so loud that kept the whole albergue up. the German lady under me started to take some medication.. or at least thats what i thought she did. turns out she needed sugar so she kept eating sweets. after 20 i stoped counting. i cant explain how annoying is to listen to someone taking a candy out of a bag, open it from its foil than chewing it... loudly and have at least 30 of them. one after the other. i understand she needed a sugar rush but come on! at 11 she finally fall asleep turned to her right and started to snore like there is no tomorrow. i wanted to cry. didnt had much sleep for sure and i knew i had 34 km ahead of me. Despite all this i started my morning happily. the first 17 km just flew away. there were many people on the road and i had passed some cute villages. in one of them there was a tiny church. i went inside. it was so nice and there was an old lady there. i gave her some money and as a respond she lighted a candle for me. i was deeply touched.after 17 km i stoped for lunch. it was getting really hot and i was getting tired so i decided to call an albergue to reserve a place. luckily they spoke English and we agreed that i will arrive around 5 pm.done deal. i was happy.than the next 17 km was just a disaster. it was getting so hot outside and i could feel that im getting weaker and weaker and soon i got to that stage when i didnt want to see anyone, i didnt want to speak or listen to music, i was too tired to sing or pray i was even tired to fight wigh myself if this was a stupid decision or not. finallt 10 to 5 i arrived to this village. i was so excited when i saw the albergue it looked great and i was ready for dinner and shower and bed only to learn tbat they decided to give away my bed. i was soooooo pissed ready to kill the Spanish lady who kept saying that the municipal has free beds. i was angry. Since i had no choice i went to the municipal and even though it was nice they tried to give me a bunk bed with no way to get up on it. so i told the lady normally i'd be ok with this but not tonight i need a normal bed. she understood and took me into this room with only 2 bunk beds in it. the bottom one was free. thank god. so first thing first i wanted to charge my phone but it turns outthat i lost it. #reallynotmyday ok.fine i decided to go for dinner instead. this crapy bar served me pasta bolognese with eggs on top. it was really bad but at this point i just started to laugh and ate it. when i went back to the municipal i started to talk to this Slovak and Italian guy. when i told them my day they invited me for dinner. the Italian guy told me that he travels with 5 other Italian man and they think the food is so bad here they cook every night. man it smelled good but i already had dinner so i thanked them and went to bed. luckily i remembered that Brigi's ipod charger was with me and i tried and it worked cause otherwise day 21 would have been my last post. i wanted to get a good sleep as i had 20 km and 1300m height ahead of me.again. 

Day 23

its monday today. luckily my roomates last night Brasilian father and son who had been doing the Camino since 2012 ( every year city to city) had been really nice and i was able to get some good rest. ok i thought 12 km flat ground than 8 going up the hill. i've been hiking for 22 days it will be ok. it wasnt. i cant tell you how bad it was but it brought me back all the horrible memories from Day 1. i was sweating so badly that it actually hurt my eyes. altough i was really proud to notice that while on day 1 i stoped every 5m now my fitness level was so much better that i could do 25 sometimes even 50m in one go :-) about 5 km from the top i started to notice tvat tbey advertise horses to rent to go to the top. i wasnt sure why. but i noticed that many people choose this option as there were places when i walked in horse shit up to my ancle high. no it wasnt nice. no it wasnt uplifting or spiritual. on the way i saw a sign saying "no pain no gain" i was like you gotta be kidding me. at this stage i rather not gain anything. i never been this close to hop in a taxi and take it to the next stop or even Santiago. After 2.5 long dreadful hours i was finally up on top at 1370 m again. it was really nice but to be honest i thought Day 1 and tge 1500 was a lot more special. Since it was really early and i heard horror stories on the albergue i decided to push for another 7km for the next village.Only problem was that i wasnt sure if they will have any free beds left but i thought i give it a try.