Samos

[Sue Kenney]

Richard...yes I stayed at Samos and you are right it was bone chilling cold and damp. To this day when I get cold it triggers a link in my memory back to the night I slept there. There was no hot water and no heat. It was December and it went below zero at night.

I arrived with another pilgrim just before 7PM and we were informed that vespers were at 7. There were 6 or 7 Brothers who participated in the vespers at the chapel in the monestary and only 4 pilgrims. I remember the beautiful paintings on the walls of the dark hallway to the chapel. I believe part of the monestary was built in the 6th century.

Partway through the evening the Swiss pilgrim left. We saw him later that morning sitting near a building meditating. I wondered if it was actually warmer outside.

Thanks for memories.
Sue

Richard Ferguson wrote:

> I had the same experience, not taking the road route out of Leon.  I had started in Leon, gotten way off route, only getting back on the "other route" at Chozas de Abajo.  I spent the night in Mazarife, but stayed at a kind of Bed and Breakfast because the refugio was kind of trashed and no one else was there.  It was a rough start.   I did not meet  my first pilgrim until I was at the bridge at Hopital de Orbigo, after two days of walking!   I remember talking to the pilgrims at the bridge, and I must have seemed upset, since one pilgrim told me "Animo!  Estas aqui!".  (Take heart, you are here!).  Everything started to look up from Orbigo on.
>
> Relative to the crowds, the vast majority of the people stay on the usual route, and any variation offers the oportunity for a little solitude.  I went to Samos before I went to Sarria, and saw relatively few pilgrims on that route variation, although I did walk with one couple for a few km.  There were quite a few pilgrims in the refugio at Samos, but that is one cold refugio.
>
> Richard