It’s been a much better day. Feet that were in agony last night responded well to ten hours sleep and only complained towards the end of today’s walk.

Last night’s albergue was perfect.

Our room was delightful, whilst dinner was as good as it could have been. The first course, vegetable soup was delicious. The second, rice with beef and green lentils was excellent. Two ladies in their late 60s, early 70s, plonked themselves down next to mum and I. The two were chatting in Spanish, laughing and joking with the chef. They were two of the jolliest people I’ve ever met. Everything from the wine to the food to the company around them seemed to give them enormous pleasure. They were utterly joyful, there’s no other way to describe them. Mum decided that they were nuns. I suspect that she was right. Every year apparently they take 10 days out together to walk a section of the Camino. They’re hoping to get to Santiago on this trip. My attempt to walk back to my room after dinner without my feet actually touching the floor brought them great pleasure. 🤗

The lane leading away from the albergue was full of snow and walking was difficult. As we dropped in altitude the snow became patchy and finally disappeared.

The buildings around us were interesting.

Note the sleeping dog.

Neither mum not I could quite work out the function of this pilgrim.

Shortly after this chap had made us smile, the Camino split into two alternatives. Naturally we chose the steeper but shorter route.

Shortly after we started this route we passed an Italian pilgrim. Note the heavy pack, umbrella and heavily bandaged knees.

It looks like he’s carrying a tent too. He walked a little slower than us and smiled as we passed and wished him a good Camino. A little later we were passed by a chap on a mountain bike several sizes too small for him. He’d cycled from Madrid; he’d bought the bike second hand from a friend, had damaged his left knee, almost certainly because the bike was too small and was forced to walk up all the hills. He’d lived in Berlin but had separated from his wife and had decided to cycle to clear his head before heading off to live in Cadiz. He spoke excellent English, was Brazilian with a German mother and Spanish father and had lived all over the place. Lovely chap with a great smile.

We’d started walking in the midst of a low cloud, had dropped down into more pleasant weather but rain appeared and disappeared all day long. The countryside was lush with nice views and cows 🌝.

The route markers were invariably interesting

and now that we’re in Galicia, there are markers every few hundred metres counting down the distance to Santiago de Compostela. We started the day at a little over 148 km, we ended it at 114 km, so roughly 34 km or 21 miles covered today.

We’re in Sarria which is where roughly 150,000 pilgrims start their walk every year. At 114 km from Santiago, anyone who can prove from the stamps in their credential (paper roughly the size of a small notebook but with only half a dozen pages or so) that they’ve walked all the way to Santiago can claim a Compostela (a certificate attesting to a religious or spiritual motivation for walking to the tomb of St James). 100+ km is the requisite distance (200+ km for cyclists).

I had expected Sarria to be an interesting place. It’s not. What will be interesting is to see how many pilgrims are en route tomorrow. So far it’s been pretty quiet which has been a pleasant surprise. At the time that we left St Jean in July 2016, roughly 250 – 300 pilgrims were leaving each today with between 700 – 800 leaving Sarria daily. Our experiences so far suggest that only a tiny fraction of that number are currently on their way.

Nothing else of note to report. Dinner tonight was pleasant. Two American women, daughter and mum were sitting close to us. They were from Texas, the daughter was studying chemical engineering and had spent a semester at Swansea University which she had loved. We covered Trump, Brexit, gun control, immigration, government snooping and other stuff. Mum must have kicked me a dozen times under the table 🌝 but I was a paragon of diplomacy.

Buen Camino