Hi, Mendiwalker,
Are there other pilgrims in Dumbria? I've slept there three times, twice totally alone, once with a full house! The people of Dumbria are about the nicest bunch of people I've met on any camino. I've probably told the story before (at my age, you kind of forget whom you've told what to), but here goes:
I arrived at the albergue on a Sunday afternoon in July (2014). By 3 pm the place was full! Several pilgrims headed down in search of a store or a bar or some source of food. Nothing open.
Around 6 pm, I went down with another pilgrim in the hopes that something would have opened up. There we learned that usually something is open on Sunday, but today were fiestas in a nearby pueblo, so everyone was there. We called the Dumbria taxi to see if he would drive us to the fiestas where we knew there would be food, but he was having too good a time at the fiesta to come back and get us. One of the women in town told us to come back at 8 pm, something may open up then.
Back at 8, everything still closed. The women we had talked to lived on the main drag and came out when they saw us. We started to attract a crowd, and the townsfolk took it upon themselves to go to their homes and bring out food for us. Freshly laid eggs, bread, onions, tortilla, potatoes, even wine! They would accept no money, but rather told us that it was their duty to make sure that Dumbria provided for pilgrims. That was incredibly humbling, to think that they thought they had an obligation to take care of me. When we got back to the albergue, two Polish seminarians took charge of whipping up the meal, and then another woman from town arrived, bringing us jars of olives and some other munchies. We were astonished. We took up a collection, stuck it in an envelope and put it on the door where the "ringleader" lived. It may seem like a silly story, but for me it was a pretty incredible example of what humanity is all about. Buen camino, Laurie