Sunday, June 10, 2007

Melide


On the shortest of our walking days on the Camino, our destination was Melide, a mere 14km away. In celebration of this quasi day-off, many stayed up past sunset and didn´t awake until 8AM. By Camino standards, this was an all night party followed by sleeping in.

We were punished the Camino Gods for our late departure as the walk was hot, humid, and dusty. We were left sweating more than we would have on most earlier days, still very happy to find our hostel at the entrance to town.

Our first stop on the trip was the famous Pulperia Ezequiel, a restaurant that served octupus. In case you were confused about the main delicacy of the establishment, a stout Galician woman cooked octupi in a large copper pot and hacked away at tentacles as you entered. My personal response, after washing down the pieces of tentacle with copious amounts of white wine, was ¨tastes like chicken¨. There were varying opinions on eating octupus, from delight to disgusted refusal, I landed somewhere in the middle.

Later in the day, I gave my rousing minute and a half presentation on the city. Essentially, the town boasts a dilapidated old city surrounded by a less than impressive modern section. Quaint but nothing to write home about (what irony!!) Although there were several small Romanesque churches scattered throughout the old town, construction and general group exhaustion prevented us from fully exploring the city. Since a pre-dawn departure was planned for the next day, we party animals had to settle on playing hearts followed by a 9PM bedtime, while the children of Melide (literally 5 to 8 year olds) played musical chairs in the bar below to their great delight, and our great disdain.

--Jim


1 comment:

John Carey said...

The joys of pulpo
I love octopus but then there are octopus and octopi (?). It depends how it is cooked - it can be rubbery. My favorite octopus story is from the Azores. I was working on a film crew doing a documentary. At lunch, we stopped at a simple restaurant near the end of the island. There was only one item on the menu - octopus. Now, since the Azores are in the middle of the Atlantic, you don't catch your ordinary small octopus. They served me an octopus that extended over a 12 inch plate. I was afraid that at any moment, one of the tentacles would reach up and grab me.
Good luck with your journey.

john carey