We have both commented in this Blog that the village has a lot of shops, bars and general ‘things’ (it has two convents too, but I don’t think these are used any more). For 1000 people it is very well served.
And it probably has more than we know, as many shops don’t have signs outside and just look just like normal houses. The bakery for instance is just like walking into someones front room – if Jesus had not pointed it out to us I don’t think we would have had the courage to go in and help ourselves to ‘pan’.
This means that evenings are the best time to try to find out exactly what is going on – the evenings get dark at 6.30ish and the shops have lights on. However, so unfortunately do most normal houses and to make matters worse, the open door policy I am sure exists to confuse everyone! Last night coming home from the phone box I saw a butchers shop or sausage mongers, which I had not seen before with rows and rows of sausages hung from the roof. But, it could well have been a house with someone just preparing a lot of sausages for the weekend.
We’ve not found the post office yet. There must be one. There are three banks. We have found the post box and we asked some of our new friends in the library where the Correos was (100% sure this is the right word). They directed us down to the church which is where the post box is. Now, the post box is on the wall of a house which keeps its front door open – could this be the post office? It would make sense, it is by the mayors office and he probably has a lot of post. The only way to find out is to go in, or keep watch on the place. If we go in we risk joining a nice family at rest, if we keep watch on the place we will look suspicious and risk the wrath of the gun toting policemen who probably have views on ‘foreigners’ who keep a watch on post offices.
So until we work out what our strategy is going to be for tracking down the Post Office we will continue going into Llarena, and strolling slowly past the potential post office / house in the vain hope that we will see someone go in with a stack of letters.