Total ascent = 1,476 feet
Cumulative distance = 445.7 miles
My feet ache! David's shin hurts.
We thought we would be able to handle this distance better by now!
It's been a long day on the Camino.
We woke up this morning hoping to get an early start on a 15 mile day. It was raining, but the forecast was for it to let up later in the morning. So we delayed our start until 8:30. By then the rain had stopped. We walked back through Portomarin, past the church
and an albergue sporting what seems to be the Camino mascot adopted by the government of Galicia.
At the reservoir's edge we rejoined the Camino and were led out of town by these new way markers.
We crossed a bridge over a river and headed uphill...all day!! At least it seemed that way.
Like yesterday, there were a lot of people on the Camino for most of the morning.
Mostly Spaniards, who like to treat everything like a fiesta. Lots of excited talking and yelling up and down the trail. We can tell that they started recently, because they blow past us, and charge up the senda. We usually see them again as we pass by the next cafe.
Our walk today was on a mix of sendas (gravel pathway) and quiet country roads. But in spite of going up almost all day, we didn't really get much in way of views.
We stopped for lunch just as it started to rain - a piece of luck there. However, the cafe we chose only served ham or ham and cheese bogadillos. Oh well, at least they added the tomatoes and lettuce we requested. The rain had stopped by the time we left the cafe - for five minutes. We had to pull out the raincoats and pack covers.
It didn't last long, but we had showers off and on for the rest of the afternoon. So much for weather reports.
The afternoon walk (still up) took us from village to village, mostly still farming communities. Seems everyone, including the farm animals, get depressed on dreary rain days.
We started seeing these structures yesterday, but haven't figured out what they are yet.
We think they may be for bee hives, but aren't sure. We saw bees going in and out of this one.
The villages increasingly contain albergues, cafés or other businesses to support peregrinos. Our afternoon stop at a cafe had some interesting yard art
Late in the afternoon there was a substantial downhill for a few miles just before we reached the day's destination, Palas de Rei.
We were so happy to see our hotel. Even happier that it had an elevator when we found out we were on the third floor. I'm sure we will be sound asleep right after dinner tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment