October 28, 2019

A bedbug.

10/28/2019, 18:30

Two nights ago, I didn’t sleep very well because we found dead bedbugs in our albergue.  My mind convinced me that I was being bitten all night so I got very little sleep.  As a result, yesterday I was almost sleep walking to our next town, Pieros.  In Pieros, we met a very nice and knowledgable hospitalero (as the “innkeeper” at an albergue is called).  Well, Mikhail looked at the fresh bite marks on my legs and confirmed that, yes, I had bedbugs!!!! 

Therefore, we washed, in extremely hot water, ALL the contents of my backpack.  Once dried, I placed everything back in ziplock bags.  Today, upon our arrival at another wonderful albergue here in Trabadelo, another caring and knowledgable pair of hospitaleros (Fermin and Susi) helped the rest of our Camino family wash and dry all of their clothing and fumigated our backpacks, shoes and anything else that couldn’t be washed.  As I write this, our gear is sitting in sealed plastic bags into which a bedbug killing agent was sprayed.  

While extremely frustrating, I am reminded that bedbugs are, unfortunately, a definite possibility on the Camino where a multitude of traveling individuals are housed together.  So this experience has taught me patience (the bedbug problem could not be immediately fixed; it took a couple of days to fully resolve the problem).  Additionally, as I’d heard many times in my youth when, in school, whenever we students would  complain that  we were unduly suffering, the nuns would tell us “Just offer it up (to God).”  So, today I’m offering up all my minor troubles and inconveniences.

Kate (USA), Fr. Tony, Charlotte (UK), and Jim.  580km down; 200km to go! 
The “door of perdition” in Villafranca through which ailing pilgrims who were unable to continue, in medieval times, could pass and still receive the indulgences granted to those who completed the entire pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. 
View from the “duro” high route after  a 2000 foot climb near Villafranca.
Casa Susi in Trabadelo where Susi and Fermin aided us with our “bedbug” problem.
Jim at the border of  Galicia, the last Spanish autonomous province through which we pass on our pilgrimage; 160km (about 100 miles) to go.
View from near O Cebreiro looking back toward Villafranca after another 2,000+ foot climb into the mountainous  region of Galicia.

Jim Olshefski