May 18 - Day day 35

Day 35 - Castaneda to Arca/O Pedrouzo - 25 km

It was a tough, long walking day today. Well, relatively, anyway. We are both ready to be done. Our bodies are starting to break down. After 5 weeks of no blisters, I now have a couple small ones. After the walk today I had a nosebleed. Rachel is just plain tired.

It was quite a lovely walk. Mostly my favourite type of trail, shaded forest path on soft dirt. But it was long and getting warm by the time we got in, and by then we were on hard sidewalks.

This morning started out interesting. Our beautiful Casa rural (where I had a wonderful sleep) had a locked gate. And we were the only ones up. Not a difficult problem to solve actually (and we are getting quite resourceful). There were stairs built into the stone fence so it was easy to climb onto the fence and just jump off the other side.

You can see the fence we had to get over (the gate was closed at the time). And the structure on the right is a kind of small granary common in Galicia

The first 6 km was great, hardly any other pilgrims out yet. After we stopped for coffee that all changed. We figure that the Sarria pilgrims mostly will stay in the larger towns, not knowing the joys of the tiny villages. We had coffee in Arzúa, a town of 6,000. After our break, we were back to hoards of pilgrims. At least too many for us.

Another stop at Boavista for an ice cream. For our earlier break we had huge croissants with ham and cheese. Still not hungry, but we always have room for ice cream.

It's a beer tree! Seen at a roadside bar

After that it was just short rest breaks when a bench or picnic table presented itself. And just kept putting one foot in front of the other until we reached our destination. Today was another Pensión. We have a private room with a shared bathroom upstairs from a bar. It’s nice.

After my shower today my nose started to bleed. And it wouldn’t stop. For a long time. Eventually it did of course, but by then we missed our beer and snack time and had to go right to nap time.

After that we checked out the town and had supper. We didn’t do the pilgrim meal today, instead a calamari appetizer and a shared pizza. With cerveza limon.

Today’s lesson: persistence is key. When things get hard, keep going and you will arrive. Keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Cafe con leche and croissant with ham and queso 4€

Ice cream 2€

Pension 15€

Supper 10€

Groceries for breakfast 1.35€