A Gudiña - Laza 35 km

Having made the decision to go to Laza by taxi, Meg, Kathleen, Anita and I all had a lie in. Once we were all ready to go we set off in search of a café for breakfast, which we found eventually. Breakfast was good and the café owner telephoned a taxi for us, and it arrived very soon after that. The taxi driver was chatty and really funny, and we were there within 45 minutes. The albergue was inevitably closed, and so we went to a café and had second breakfast like real Hobbits.

The albergue was modern, clean with a good kitchen. We were allocated a room together and picked our bunks and sorted our stuff out. Anne arrived about 1500 but by 1700 Mirjam had still not arrived so I set off to look for her and much to my relief I met her coming up the road. I took her mochila and walked her back to the albergue.

There was nothing to do but the usual peregrino stuff, I was fortunate enough to spend a long time that evening in conversation with Mirjam, and I will always treasure that time with her. I am sure that people back home will ask me about my camino experience and what it was like walking every day, and what the landscape was like, and the food etc. As I have reflected on that I have come to understand that above all it is the moments with other people, where bonds of love and friendship were established and deepened that have had the deepest impact and settle longest in the heart.

There's not much else to say about that day so let me give you a typical day in my life as a peregrino

1. Get up, normally between 0500 and 0530, and get dressed, (some peregrinos sleep in the next day's clothes or at least next day's underwear)
2. Breakfast of fruit or whatever I managed to buy the day before or if I'm really lucky something in a café.
3. Walk anything from 15-32 km over varied terrain and always in the heat if not always in direct sunlight. Temperatures ranged from about 5° to 39° and sometimes it was still 25°-30° after midnight
4. Arrive at the albergue and get booked in, pick a bunk and get clean clothes out of my bag
5. Shower and change into the clothes for the next day's walk
wash my dirty clothes, almost always in a sink of cold water with a bar of soap and if possible, get them hung outside in the sun
6. Look for a shop to buy supplies for the next day, water fruit etc.
7. Find somewhere to eat, café/bar/restaurants normally offered hot meals between 1330 and 1500 and then again at 2000 - 2100. Depending on the kitchen facilities some folk might cook their own dinner, I did a few times.
8. Spend some quality time with Meg, Kathleen, Anita, Anne, Julia and Mirjam
9. Read over the route for the next day and check the map, pack my mochila
10. Journal about the day, read, listen to music then sleep.
11. Get up the next day and do it all again.

Of course, there's a lot that happened in-between those lines, but that's for me to know.Read more