Walk to Santiago but how do you ESCAPE?.. Tunnel out?… We have to leave today Saturday, and there appears to be no way to get out of town other than walking. First, we walked to the bus station – no bus; so on to the train station. The lady at the train information said we were too late, we had missed all of the trains. Then she began talking to her computer, interrupting her conversation with her computer to bless herself and mutter a pray. Success, she could get us on a train to Barcelona, early tomorrow morning. No, we don’t want to go to Barcelona, our return plane is in Paris. No problem, more conversation with her computer, and a few more prayers – Success, she has once again performed a miracle, and got us on the train to Barcelona. Forget Barcelona, where else can I go right now by train? Her response,”No where, it is too late, no more trains. Thanking her for all her effort and one hell of a good job; we walked out on to the train platform, where a number of people were obviously waiting – for what? We asked the first two we came to, who were Irish Pilgrims on their way home to Dublin. How are you getting to Dublin? The train to Vigo, Spain and fly from there. The TRAIN? When in just a few minutes,today of course. I ran back into the info office – they are taking a train to Vigo, I want to go to Vigo! Of course, just go buy a ticket the train arrives in 15 mins. So simple, what was all that about Barcelona? The train arrived , and we were off to VIGO. Then we were in Vigo, but we want to be in France. There is no train today, but you could go to Barcelona tomorrow. This has become an Abbott & Costello routine. Every time I hear Barcelona, “slowl

y I turn and step by step,”. No Barcelona,so we are off to the Vigo bus station. The bus to France is $175. A person. So, we are off to the airport, but you have to go to another location to get a bus to the airport. We start walking to the airport bus stop, but are accosted by a a young man and his parents; seeing our backpacks, the quickly stepped into a phone booth and in a flash reappeared as Super Angels, ready to escort Camino Pilgrims to the proper bus stop. A bit of language distortion had them originally taking us to get a Compostela stamp. That corrected they eventually got us to the correct bus stop, and we were on our way to the airport. At the airport, you guessed it the only flight was too Barcelona. Sorry, Senor, but what a relief the flight was full. I need a flight to Paris. We don’t fly to Paris. End of flight plan, no problem, we will rent a car and drive, our friends at Avis will take care of us. The Avis agent,”It is $400 euros for the car and another $2,000 euros to take it to France. Forget it Avis. We now have a Eurocar are at a hotel in an unknown area of Spain. We haven’t eaten since breakfast, it is now after 9 PM, and our host has assured us they will have dinner, but no indication that it is going to happen…

It is now 9:30PM and no sign of dinner service.  They set all the tables in the dining room, the closed the doors.  There are now about 30 Hungry people milling about.  I think I’ll go cot down a tree for a battering ram and attack the dining room door – we shall overcome. . .