Santiago to Negreira - on my way to the

We left Santiago in dense mist - even the Cathedral square was swathed in cloud.
The Camino out of Santiago was as well sign posted as our route into the city. This was not really what I had expected but we soon settled into a confident reliance on the same yellow arrows and accurate Galician granite marker posts - now counting down to Finisterre rather than to Santiago.
We walked in mist for about the first 10km and when we stopped for a coffee it almost seemed to be about to start to rain. The Italian girl we had been walking with (Federica- originally from Bari - studying near Bologna) put her waterproof cover on her back pack. She had been in Santiago after walking the Camino Portuguese from Porto. She is at a transitional moment in her life, trying to decide whether to embark on a PhD or to try to find a job. She has travelled widely and been travelling for a while following finishing her degree earlier this year.
Anyway in the end instead of raining it cleared up beautifully and the rest of the day was perfect - sunny but with cool air and a breeze.
We had brought bread and Tetilla (Galician cheese) with us and shared this with Federica in a beautiful village O Ponte Maceira. We sat by a clear fast flowing river and after eating I swam before we continued on to Negreira.
It really was a sublimely beautiful day and the walk on to Negreira was easy and enjoyable.
After reaching our Albergue the weather clouded over and now it’s raining quite heavily. I think we are all hoping that it will be dry by the morning.
Negreira is quite a substantial town but bizarrely almost completely closed up this Friday afternoon. They are having a big festival over the weekend (Christmas like lights suspended over the streets, fairground rides and stalls etc) but for some reason this seems to involve all the shops closing, and many of the bars and restaurants too. There were a lot of quite sad looking pilgrims wandering around - we had been warned that this was the last place to stick up on food etc before the coast and there are, apparently, large stretches of the Camino coming up where there are no devices of any kind. So it’s a bit of an issue not being able to get anything in Negreira. We finally found, thanks to Hapoy Cow, a place that did a couple of vegetarian options for dinner so now I’m no longer hungry. I was actually very hungry and increasingly hangrily despondent. But all resolved now thank goodness.
As we’re planning to leave fairly early tomorrow we’re not having breakfast and so the Albergue has very generously given us lots of stuff to take with us - so we will be okay if we can carry it and fit it into the rucksacks.Baca lagi