Day 8 Porto Mougás 25.44km

After dinner last night, we went to find the place where the river taxi would leave in the morning. It turns out there is a bridge across to Spain, but looking at the map it seems to add on another three or four kilometres, so we decided to stick to plan A and get the river taxi. We bought our tickets for tomorrow and decided to go for the first boat at 0615. So we were up early. In fact, we were the first there.

The river was very calm, and the journey was fast, and in a couple of minutes we were in Spain. We needn't have worried about queues at the border control because there was no border control. So we set off following the yellow arrows, and in no time at all, we had reached the first town on our route, A Guarda. We decided to stop for coffee and tostada at the first cafe we came to. The waitress told me my Spanish was excellent, and so I took a minute to thank God for Camino Ken, who spent many hours trying to teach me camino Spanish.

Today's walk was very varied, through forest, road, towns, and gravel paths, always winding away from and then returning to the sea. It was a very enjoyable walk but also tiring in the heat. We were glad to arrive at the albergue. I had booked two single rooms with a shared bathroom and shower. However, we were given two double en suite rooms with great views of the sea.

We have to eat in the restaurant next door as it's the only game in town, so we'll see how that goes. (It was actually OK, I have had a lot worse on the camino).Read more