We awoke to the sound of the alarm at 7 a.m. Heavy clouds on the mountain presaged rain that never arrived. Still tired and with aching feet we headed down to breakfast.

Breakfast at La Mesa was the typical coffee, fresh orange juice, toast and jam. Satiated, we headed out only to find that the next 3km was up a very, very steep hill. It’s a great way to get the heart going first thing in the morning but both of us were relieved when it leveled out for a while.

We were astonished to find the guys from Seville, the ‘angels’ joining us on the ascent, only this time without bags.

They’d decided that life with inappropriate rucksacks was clearly no life at all and had organised a local bag movement company to carry them for them. It’s typically only €5 per bag so well worth it.

As it turned out they walked within a few hundred metres of us the rest of the way to Grandos de Selime.

The route soon descended through thick forest to what appeared to be a large lake.

The forest was badly burned over pretty much the entire duration of the descent.

Apparently in 2017 the Camino Primitivo had been closed for several days while the forest burned. New low level growth was clearly visible

but the trunks of the trees were black from top to bottom and the trees were presumably dead 😨.

The local fauna are always interesting and this giant slug was no exception.

The burned trees were almost exclusively pine but the forest on the other side of the path was mostly deciduous trees and clearly quite old.

Both of us were surprised to see an enormous dam when we reached the road at the bottom of the descent.

Built in the 1950s to generate electricity, the village of Selime was drowned and a lake 36km long was created.

The area reeked of desolation. The buildings built to house the workers were left abandoned as were those houses in the village that lay above the water line.

The Camino followed the road for the next 10km or so giving us some lovely views over the lake.

This Camino is very different to the Frances. It’s far more remote with many more strenuous ascents and descents. The pilgrims are younger, considerably fitter and there are hardly any single women. As mum pointed out, the Camino Primitivo is for ‘hard core’ pilgrims. The distances between albergues is greater and there is less capacity. On the other hand, it’s a more beautiful Camino and well worth the extra effort.

We arrived in Grandos de Selime before 1 o’clock and stopped in one of the bars.

We’d decided to return home to re-take responsibility for Bob and ordered a taxi. It arrived and took us to the nearest village on the bus route at Fonsagarda. According to mum’s electronic timetable the bus was supposed to leave at 2:30 but it seems that the timetable was out of date and it had left 13 minutes earlier at 2:15 😓.

Mum spoke to the driver, we jumped back in and he raced off in an attempt to catch the bus. Some 35km later we did – an expensive taxi trip. The rest of the trip was uneventful. A second 2hr bus trip from Lugo to Santiago saw us in our hotel in time to grab a vegetarian dinner before settling down to watch the semi final between England and Croatia. As I write, England are 1-0 up but Croatia are making most of the running.

Our flight leaves on Friday at 9:40 which gives us time to pick up my boots from the main post office and generally pretend to be tourists. Hopefully we’ll come back one day soon to complete this most interesting of Caminos.

Buen Camino