2015-10-15: Caminando A Gudiña - Laza (36/304 km, Altitud 1.150 -> 470 m)

Did wake early in a good room and after collecting my things went down to have breakfast with the others at the bar of the hotel. We - the Dutchman, the Frenchman and I - left when it was still dark and went up through the village and then hit the road.
There were a lot of lorries with cement and gravel and other machines to the building sites of the AVE from Castillia to Ourense. In fact the whole area is affected by this. The landscape is somewhat barren with heights that dominated the area. Threes are scarce at these high altitudes. Very beautiful. A fantastic embalse (dam) filled one valley with water. But you at many places saw building sites for the AVE scattered in this otherwise desolate landscape. And that looked a bit strange to say the least.
We passed several small villages with only a couple of buildings and really enjoyed the day walking up and down the ridges. One of the best day in the whole of Vía de la Plata, when it comes to the landscape.

After a steep and stony decent we tried to have lunch at Campobecerros. As usual we ordered bocadillos but the lady behind the bar said that we could not have those but did not really tell us what was the problem, so we took some caffee con leche and some pastry. When we left the deliveries came. Very late, but then we understood the problem.
The rest of the afternoon passed and we were descending in altitude towards the Laza village which is only at 470 m. We saw some slow trains at the old one track railway that is also going through these mountains. Would be good to take that sometime.
In Laza you have to go to the Protección Civil (Centro de Salud) to report, pay the fee for the albergue and get the keys. They informed us that we could go there but said that we should not go to sleep in the room before 10 o'clock since they that sprayed the room for bedbugs at 10 in the morning. We told them about our problems in "A Gudiña" the day before and they asked us if we had reported those. We said no. So they obviously did. It is important to stop this everywhere along the Vía de la Plata at the same time, otherwise you will never get an end to it.
It was a good albergue near the sports ground and we could take our showers an wash before going out to have a beer. In the albergue we met a couple from Estonia that came the way from Portugal. They are right now also spending their time outside the room.