Palas de Rei to Arzua
Today seemed like our final hurdle. We had close to 30km to cover and by now we have a good feeling for what a drag those last few kilometres can be. It didn't work out too badly.
On the positive side, we got to bed really early. Breakfast was available from 6am, so we had the alarm set for an early getaway. On the negative side, two French women in the room next to us talked their heads off until midnight. I'd just dozed off when they woke me at 9.15pm. I cursed them and dozed off again, but they must have had a drink or two, as the volume increased and woke me again at 11.15pm. I lay there, self-righteously building myself up to a fit of wild indignation, when I would drape a towel around my young and tender body and bang on their door. The more time went by, the more morally outraged I became. Midnight, I decided, was when I'd confront them. Miraculously, at 11.58pm, they stopped. They don't know how lucky they were.
By 5.58am we were standing outside the breakfast bar and we were soon fueled up with the usual, plus two fried eggs and we hit the road at 6.26am. It was cold. Six degrees, and so we were rugged up. Cathie even had on a beanie and gloves. At first it was a bit bleak and misty. Quite early on we fell in with a Canadian called Don, who was very entertaining company.
We had a break at about 8km and another at about 18km, but otherwise walked steadily through a mix of terrain, mostly rural, some wooded. Because we'd started early, we weren't seeing toom many other pilgrims - just enough. Sometime after that we met up with Yani (spelling?) and Catherine from New Jersey. Yani was originally from Greece. They'd had a business making pizzas, but Covid had made things too tough, so they'd sold up and were spending some time travelling before deciding on their next move.
Don rejoined us after a while and we all walked together, pausing briefly from some Galician bagpipes and drumming. A little further on we met Ellen, from Holland, and so our little cavalcade wandered on, time passing quickly. We'd planned to stop for a lunch break, but have so many conversations going on meant the time passed really quickly and we found our hotel after just over seven hours of walking.
Showers were a priority, so it was after 2.30pm before we set out looking for lunch. Being Sunday, everything was full, with Spanish families and pilgrims taking all the available space. We eventually found a great pizza bar and asked two innocent young Spanish pilgrims if we could share their table.
Every grocery store in town was closed (Sunday), but we found a very odd little shop and bought water for tomorrow and beer for creative purposes, then returned to our room. The wifi is less than perfect and photos are slow to arrive. Besides, I was too busy talking for much of today's walk, so I'll include all the photos I can in an album at the end and dot a few through this blog shortly.
Today's Relive video: https://www.relive.cc/view/
Today's music. For those outside of New Zealand, the country has instituted a new public holiday to celebrate Matariki. This is the time when the Maori new year would begin, when the old year ended and the new one began. We missed that celebration, but Sarah Naylor, who lives in Palmerston North, NZ and has been following our blog as she prepares for her own pilgrimage, suggested a Maori song, Hine E Hine, sung by a young NZ singer, Georgia Lines. I have my own favourite of this song on the album Kiri and Friends, but I thought it appropriate, since we're in Spain, to have the version by Jose Carreras. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OobX0ZYR_-A
Here's the day's photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/HkpPPjtz1zMRcXDUA
As a general observation, wifi has been much better now than in 2019, but it seems to be the smaller venues that have made the effort. In an increasingly switched on world, hotels offering facilities for travellers need to make sure their connectivity is up to scratch. Today is one of the better hotels - their internet connections need to be fit for purpose.
A footnote: A da later, our hotel is splendid and the wifi seems to be working well. I've updated the photo album, but haven't added photos to the blog - maybe another day.
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That was a biiig day!!! I guess you are lucky that you have had only one noisey neighbours, and sad that it was when you really need a big sleep. The end of any 'event' or game is the hardest part... rest up and good luck for today...one step at a time!!
ReplyDeleteThank you Anonymous - today 9monday) was indeed better
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