El Acebo to Molinaseca

June 4th - El Acebo to Molinaseca
El Acebo does a good job of catering to the pilgrims with one exception - there's no place in town to get breakfast before 8:00. By that time almost everyone is long gone searching for coffee and food at the next available location. But the town itself has grown since I was last here in 2009. At that time El Meson de Aceba was a hopping restaurant and snack place because it was essentially the only place in town for food. There was a hotel/casa rural that is an upper scale spot and a woman who made bocadillos and sold a few drinks but that was it. Now as you enter town there is a grocery store, a bar, two casa rurals all selling food and drinks long before you reach El Meson de Aceba. Anytime I've gone in there before it was hopping. This time it was dead. But we had made reservations there and so stayed. It was pleasant and nice and did fill up eventually although I don't think they sell near as much food as they used to. But we slept reasonably well and were ready to go by about 7:15. It was a bit of a shock to find nothing available at that time of the day so we headed out with our peanuts and dried apricots and shared and apple I had purchased the night before.

The way was downhill and very rough all morning. Large rocks and the  steep downhill made the going slow and hard on the knees. Eventually after about 5 kilometers we did find a place for breakfast. it sounded wonderful, eggs and toast, coffee or tea, orange juice - but in fact it was terrible except for the eggs. The toast was pan bimbo (regular white bread), the orange juice was orange pop with maybe 10% juice and the coffee was lukewarm instant coffee. The lady seemed a bit upset when we didn't eat it all but didn't ask why. We moved on and eventually arrived at Molinaseca which is a lovely little spot with numerous good restaurants, but unfortunately with one out of four twisted knees. It's not surprising considering the terrain, and a knee brace and a bit of rest will no doubt fix it up. The pharmacy was, as always, extremely helpful. It has cut our day short but seems worth it to stop and rest that knee rather than risk injuring it further.

After the trip to the pharmacy we went to one of the restaurants that offered fresh orange juice and quickly filled up the caffeine tanks which were very low on fuel and had a really great mixed salad while we pondered our immediate future. A quick walk around the block determined that a knee rest was in order, so we are now ensconced in a very sunny albergue relaxing and resting.

When we see the number of people who are much younger than us who took taxis today and the many others who taxied their backpacks, it's amazing that we are doing as well as we are - two old women doddering across the country, stumbling and lurching up and down over boulders and upended slate with slippery smaller rocks in between to slide on, carrying packs that feel too heavy, eating too much white bread and sugar and pushing our bodies to do things they really want to stop doing now. So another rest won't hurt us a bit.