Baby of four months
A man knocks on our door around our dinner time, and asks if he could stay here. He looks for something for his partner and baby. They didn’t arrive yet. He seems stressed and occupied. He wants to stay, or not? No, he didn’t want to stay with other people. Obviously when you have a four-year-old you have stress about sleeping with others. But there is nobody at our Casinha…
He had his bag send to the albergue in Rabacal so he had to go there to get his bag. He lost the overview.
Well, it was six o’clock, so Dutch as we are, we wanted to eat, with them preferably because I made a large pan of Soto, the delicious Indonesian soup.
Jaap-Willem comes outside and says: I will bring you to your bag, and afterwards we eat together.
Pilgrim: “That is too kind, I do need paper and a pen, to write a message for my wife that she goes to this albergue. I will hang it on the stone at the crossing”.
??? I do hope that they have other communications methods during their caminho than paper messages.
I say: “I will ‘lock’ (on the booking website) the albergue for other pilgrims, so you have your peace.”
Normally pilgrims will not come anymore after six o’clock.
So strange because at the moment I do this, an older pilgrim comes to ask if he could spend the night. Sorry. The whole week there are no pilgrims and when it is booked, another comes. How typical?!
The baby wears cotton diapers, and of course it was recognizable for me and he reminds me of Cinta when she was a baby. As I am always busy with the food preparing, serving, talking to our guests, that I don’t have time to take pictures of them sitting with us. So the baby on the photo is Cinta when she was four months. I know no single part of my body or mind wanted to do strenuous activities outside the comforts of home after four months of giving birth. So walking the caminho with a newborn looks like a challenge to me! They are brave.
Bom caminho.
Review on Google
On this website I made a page Visitor Voices with reviews that our guests wrote on Booking in our book or on Google. However, the whole story that this family from Texas wrote is funny and really promoting our Casinha. Anyway it is too long for the review section, so I copied it here!
An incredible Hostel! For 32€ each, a wonderful bed, a LARGE shower you can move around in with incredible hot water and water pressure, and a bathroom disconnected from the shower so as to allow guests to utilize it as necessary without hogging the bathroom too! The lovely family of 3 which runs this place is Jaap (“Jacob”), Ay Lin (“Eileen”) and their daughter Cinta are so delightfully sweet. Included in your price is a meal cooked with rare Indonesian spices. Each night they dine with the Pilgrims they host and tell them about the nature of the meal, Rabacal, and even the history of the Alb. (Over 300 years old). The living arrangements themselves are quite cozy with plenty of outlets and an individual bed light for each guest!
There is a single room with four Hostel spots. It is conjoined to the bathroom and shower.
Walkability
Extremely Walkable, Just 1.9 km shy of the other Hostel down the road. An excellent choice if you are already feeling tired at the 30 km and do not wish to walk the full 32.8 km.
Noteworthy details
I had had my bag shipped to the other Hostel in advance. Obviously I need to retrieve it. They went out of their way to help me! Instead of having to walk the 1.9 km further to the other Hostel, turn around, and walk the 1.9 km back to stay with them (a worthwhile choice), they offered and did, drive me to the other Hostel! An hour journey cut into just 8 minutes. I was relieved and when I returned, dinner was ready. A whole slew of dishes were offered from browned onions and peppers in a sweet ketchup sauce to rice and vermicelli noodles with a chicken and cabbage soup ladled over it! Each time we finished our bowls we were asked if we wanted more. We ate as much as we needed… And then some! It was so good.
