We’ve arrived at a really lovely village after a 25.4 km trek with roughly 1,000 fellow travellers. This section of the Camino from Sarria really is about as busy as it can be. It’s also pretty boring, very little wildlife, a few cows, a couple of horses, some chickens, hardly any butterflies, not even any decent slugs. Slugs on the Camino Primitivo were special, huge creatures, devouring rats, frogs and small birds with their independently moving mandibles. None here, nada, nowt. Similarly no pelicans, penguins or toucans, boring, boring, boring. But people, people we have thousands of, of all shapes, sizes and nationalities.

We’ve met Venezuelans, Italians, Australians and Koreans and were repeatedly passed by gangs of rabid, Spanish cubs and scouts, dib dibbing and dob dobbing, spitballs flying randomly as they pirouetted and gyrated past out of control of their handlers. Too hot, too many, frightening dogs, cats and the occasional emu, their dust settling leaving us coughing and spluttering .

After 14 km of such shenanigans we arrived at Melide. Melide is where the Camino Primitivo which starts from Oviedo joins the Frances. I recall how unpleasant it was after the peace and quiet of the most technically challenging camino to find oneself amongst the many thousands who started at Sarria. Tired, dusty, smelly and foot sore from tramping up and down fairly significant mountains, encountering the noisy, slow moving hordes with tiny day packs was a shock. Still, life and the Camino continues.

Melide was roughly half way on today’s journey so we stopped for lunch in a local pulpería. Since octopi are apparently at least as intelligent as dogs it seems very, very wrong to eat them but you’re unlikely to convince a Spaniard. Needless to say we didn’t eat any nor did we attempt to convince anyone.

The pension we’re staying in tonight has a reputation for excellent wifi. That might be the case within a few micrometers of the router but otherwise it’s utterly unusable. The lady on reception keeps insisting that it works but it demonstrably doesn’t, a demonstration I’m willing to give but she’s not interested 😞.

Luckily I have oodles of data and the 3G connection seems to be sufficient so 🤞.

Clearly not all Spanish priests are in favour of storks nesting in their belfries.

For those who have not read the first Frances Camino blog, this structure is a hórreo, used to dry corn free from rat infestations. Air can circulate freely but the rain is (mostly) kept out. These are found throughout Galicia in all sizes and outside pretty much all rural dwellings. New buildings invariably acquire new hórreo though I’ve no idea why. I can’t imagine that the modern professional with a job in the city but a small rural hacienda has need to dry a couple of tons of maize but one never knows.

Today’s route passed by this cheerful couple, unrelated to the Camino but perhaps constructed simply to illustrate the joy of mixing concrete.

When everyone else has turned into pumpkins, been picked up by passing aliens or arrived at their destination albergues.

Following on from yesterday’s image.

Today has been warm, somewhere between 26 and 28 degrees but with a decent hat, Mediterranean genes and plenty of fluids, 25km is a relatively comfortable distance. On previous occasions we’ve walked in excess of 40km and in temperatures that reached 37 degrees but this time we’ve been far more careful and have limited our exposure to more sensible levels of distance and temperature. We have a little over 40km left to walk and will take two whole days to do so. The weather is scheduled to remain at today’s levels until Friday at least so we should be fine. Unlike further south, where temperatures in Spain are expected to peak around 46 degrees.

We’ll have a couple of nights in Santiago to relax and rest our feet before flying home. I rather suspect that after two full Caminos on the Frances, the inglés, the Primitivo, the Portugués and the Fisterra, it’s probably time to say goodbye to Caminos and instead find a little peace and solitude in the hills and mountains of more remote areas.

Until then …

Buen camino