Life's a Stitch

14.7k

 

Ugh I made a planning blunder. We had planned to stop in a town earlier on the track yesterday, but ended up continuing. Then today planned on going the short distance to the next town and doing the steep climb out it, before our next stop. The only place to stay at the top of the hill had poor ratings. 

 

I booked a room in town without checking distances and it turns out it’s only 9k away. This was a blessing in disguise. You see, to exit Pontedeume, there is that killer hill. Arriving so early in the day it allowed us to leave our packs at our pension, enjoy lunch, and get the hill out of the way. Tomorrow we can cab back up to where we left off. 

 

We started off in the Galician mist.

 

 

Practicing the ritual that reminds us that the Camino isn’t always about moving forward, we looked back from whence we came.

 

You can tell it was an uphill day.

 

We met the cutest Camino well-wisher. He’s been taught well.

 

At lunch I heard a woman exclaim Ay Dios Mio!, just like my Puerto Rican grandmother. I thought it was funny because we hadn’t heard the Spanish use it as a exclamation. Walking up the infamous hill we met a group of four pilgrims. There was the woman from the restaurant and guess where she was from? Puerto Rico. I knew I recognized that accent. After a wonderful conversation she and her husband presented us with bracelets.

 

The hill was fine without backpacks. The glass of wine at lunch probably helped as well. It was so pleasant at the top we continued to walk through the woods until the forest released us onto a golf course. We split a Diet Coke and cabbed back to town. 

 

We treated ourselves to that decadent luxury, that we partake in once per Camino – chocolate con churro. 

 

Recognizing us from lunch the bartender threw in chocolate croissants and pound cake as well. No wonder I gained weight walking 790k on our first Camino. Everyone says it was probably muscle. I’m not sure about that.

 

We’re staying in classic non-alburgue accommodations, a room above a restaurant.

They’re all pretty much the same, reasonably priced, dated and clean. 

 

Dinner was a mere 18 steps each way from our room as opposed to last night’s 3k. It was adequate pilgrim fare. 18e for two bought an amazing amount of food: chicken broth with noodles, bread, fries and two pork chops each, dessert, 1.5 bottles of light chilled wine and two bottles of agua con gaz (fizzy water).

Tomorrow should be a reasonable walking day as we knocked nearly 5k off by doing the hill today.