Portomarín to Palas de Rei & San Xulian

I had a slightly precarious night’s sleep on another top bunk, but this time with a guard rail only on one side despite the bunks being arranged with their ends to the wall! If not quite literally all night, I definitely went to sleep hugging the single guard rail!

I was up by about 6.10 as were most of my 20 odd roommates, and after a quick banana, I set out into the dark and rainy town at about 7.10. It was not as busy as yesterday, but there were already a fair number of pilgrims on the road at this hour.

The path left Portomarín and immediately went up a fairly steep hill, which became more gentle but seemed to go on and on. The path continued upwards even as it became light enough to dispense with head torches. The rain also got heavier!

After about 9km, I stopped for breakfast of a bacon roll, a coffee and orange juice, and chatted briefly with the American lady who was also at the mass in Samos the other day. It was rapidly time to get going again and replace the wet layers - I think by this point, after a good couple of hours of constant rain, I was about as wet under my waterproof coat as outside it!

The Camino passed a number of tiny villages, some with bars and other places offering sellos, but I was keen to keep going in the rain.

On the edge of Ventas de Narón, I paused briefly to obtain a sello from a blind man inside a tiny chapel. He chattered away in rapid Spanish, which I couldn’t follow apart from the intermittent “buen Camino”. Fortunately, there was a short queue in front of me so I had chance to appreciate that he had 3 different stamps to deploy, and as he picked up one in sequence, he relied on the pilgrim to position his hands in the correct place over their credencial, and he would then press the stamp down when the pilgrim indicated he was good to stamp!

The distance to Santiago on the regular marker posts continued to fall, and went below 70 not long before I walked into the next bigger town, Palas de Reí, some 26 or so km from Portomarín (or 28 if you believe my Fitbit). It was still raining, although a bit lighter than earlier.

Having heard that there was less accommodation capacity here than Portomarín (and the municipal albergue wasn’t very big) I gave into temptation last night and booked a bed in San Xulian, about 3km beyond Palas de Reí.

I decided to have lunch in Palas before making a decision whether to walk the rest of the way to San Xulian, or get a cab there (and back again in the morning). I found what looked like a nice, but reasonable restaurant (I should say that outside the big cities, eating out is very reasonable - with many main courses no more the €10, and often less).

I went in and peeled off the outermost wet layers. I had a very nice hamburguesa and a glass of a local red wine, followed by some lemon ice cream. As I was contemplating paying and getting ready to decide whether my feet and legs would manage another 3.3km, the waitress informed me that the man in the green jumper on the next table had paid for my meal!

Mr Green Jumper turned out to be a very kind angel called Frank. He and his 2 companions were retirees from Australia, and had started at Sarria, but were taking their time and doing about 10km a day, with rest days. We chatted for a while before the Australians left.

Having rested (and dripped) in the restaurant for a hour or so, I decided to continue walking onto my albergue. The rain had mostly stopped when I stepped outside the restaurant, but started again before I’d left Palas de Reí.

I soon reached the albergue and was very pleased to get out of my wet clothes and into a warm shower! One of my roommates, from California, said that he and his mother had tried the municipal albergue in Palas only to find that they only had one bed left, which his mother took, and so he had walked on to San Xulian.Meer informatie