Day 9 Pontevedra to Caldas de Reis, 22 k

Last night was the first night I did not wake up! That only took 10 days. Sometimes it never happens.

Fantastic breakfast in the hostel with fresh orange juice at will. And eggs and homemade cake and yoghurt. I left there around 8:30. It is the Camino of late starts! I am often one of the last to leave.

I turned off the street where the hostel was and walked right into the Irish group. I confess to not loving being trapped (it feels) in the midst of so many people. It probably took about half an hour until their group stretched out and I had some space in front and behind, but then I stopped to help somebody with her map and ended up back in the middle of them and the whole repositioning thing started again. And, of course, apart from the big group there are many many other people walking. Eventually I started noticing it less — the passing and being passed, the waiting to cross over tricky bits (though there are hardly any of those), the spectacularly crowded bars. But I did cave in and put in earbuds to block out other people’s conversations.

The day was, again, defined by rain. It was the topic of all conversations. Was it less than yesterday? Hard to say. At times, it was light and at times it was torrential but it did not really stop all day. There was also a brief period of thunder and lightning, which made me think about carrying metal poles. Incredibly, despite all the water, the path was mostly fine, with almost no mud. The Galician path engineers have done an excellent job. Just one spot where there was no way around ankle-deep water.

All bars were packed. I made two coffee stops. At the second I also had a fabulous bowl of caldo gallego. Today’s coffee companions were a British couple who live in Cyprus.

Highlights today: people wearing grocery bags over their shoes: turning to say hello to someone whose hood was up and coming face-to-face with a tiny wet poodle sticking out of her coat; the wood fire at second coffee stop; wet roses.

I’m staying at a hotel in Caldas de Reis. Nice room where I spent time managing puddles, wet clothes, very wet shoes. An outing for hot chocolate led to more puddles. But by 6:30 or 7:00 the sun was out and it was possible to go for a walk around the town without getting soaked!

I was invited to join two American women and a Dutch woman for dinner at a restaurant down the street. It started serving at 7:30 and by 7:40 a huge dining room was completely full. The pilgrims like to eat early! Very good meal, but enough food for a family of four.

Tomorrow there is only supposed to be a little bit of rain, 3 mm. Today there was 20. It would be nice to spend the day with dry socks!

Not many photos because of the rain.Baca selengkapnya