Portomarín

"Jobs fill your pockets, but adventures fill your soul." - Jaime Lyn Beatty

Day 29 - Outside Sarria to Vilachá- 22km - 5hrs 45min.

Today was a long, drizzly but rewarding walk.

I headed out at 7:15am and consciously left my rain poncho in my backpack that was being transported. I am trying to have a positive attitude and manifest happiness. So, there was not going to be any rain today! I was meeting Annette near her Albergue in Sarria so we could walk together and as I had a total of 22km to do today, I was very happy for the company. I made it to town in 25 mins and got settled for a cup of tea. After Annette joined me, I realized my manifestation was not working and it started to rain - fairly heavily. We waited it out a bit and left around 8:30 am after it had slacked off somewhat. I was going to buy a cheap plastic poncho but as “cheap” was 12€, I decided I’d get wet. And wet I got!!! A light mist and drizzle followed us for the first 7km. Lovely. Thankfully I was wearing my merino wool tank and long sleeved shirt so I was never cold. And I knew they would dry with my body heat and there was lots of that from the hills!

There were SO many people on the trail. School class groups, long distance pilgrims and those that had just started. All day there were crowds of people and it was kind of weird to see and honestly, a bit annoying.

Shortly after leaving Sarria, a Camino friend of Annette’s named Kate, joined us. On one of the fist uphills, Kate told me her grandfather “Poppa Roy” ( Rot was also the name of one of my own grandfathers!) used to be a long distance swimmer. When he had a long swim, he had a mantra that Kate has been using on her Camino and especially for going up hills. She also uses small steps, tries to glide rather than plod, and go slowly. The mantra is ‘Slow, Rhythmic, Strong’. I used this and added ‘Repeat’ to the end. So every hill after, I was invoking Poppa Roy to help me up the hills. Head down, don’t look to see how long and steep the hill was and just go at my own pace. Annette and Kate let me lead, even though they are both faster walkers than I am. We had a nice tea rest break after about 8km and Annette had bought a lovely cake slice that she shared. Bit early for me, but holy heck was it ever good! While we were there it decided to stop raining, which was lovely.

On we went. We were going to be hitting the 100km marker this morning and were a bit pumped. This means there are only 100kms to go until you reach Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. Between the towns of Ferreira and A Peña, we found it. The 100km marker! Like almost every other pilgrim, we decided to take photos here to mark the occasion. We only had to wait for two people in front of us, thankfully. But due to the crowds, after the 3 of us had our turn, there had to be over a dozen people waiting. And they kept piling up! We got out of there quickly and continued on our way. We were actually able to do over 1 km with almost no one around, at one point. And it was very peaceful for the first time today.

Last night at the Sarria pilgrim office, I had been told about an amazing bar that did the best hamburgers in Galicia. I had mentioned this to Annette and Kate so when we saw the bar, it was a foregone conclusion that we were stopping! Best sangria and burger I have had since….well, at least since the other great one in Pamplona :-) After eating, we hit the road for the last push and were able to strip down to bare essentials as it was now hot, hot, hot. I only had 1.5km to go to my Albergue and they were closer to 4km to Portomarín where they were staying the night.

We finally arrived at my Albergue Casa Banderas, just before 3:30pm. Not bad timing for the day - just under 6hrs total walking time for 22km. I’m happy with that! This Albergue is run by a couple from the US and is a converted barn, as many Albergues are. Ray and Dominique great you with a small charcuterie board as there are few places to stop on the way here, and pilgrims are always hungry on arrival. As I had just had this massive burger, Dominique waited a bit and then brought me wine and a lovely fruit and nut board. Perfection! The Albergue has a washer and drier so I was able to pay for the luxury of a wash and dry for all the clothes I have - with the exception of those I needed for modesty! I had a shower in the outdoor shower area (so cool - like being in the Caribbean) and then did more planning as I have nothing booked after this point. Dinner was homemade vegetable soup, spaghetti bolognaise and a butternut squash bolognaise, triple chocolate brownie with homemade vanilla ice cream with blackberry jam. I’ve had WAY more food than I needed today!

Looks like tomorrow is another 20km day with the first 10km all uphills again. I’ve got this (I hope!!) Slow, Rhythmic, Strong, Repeat.Read more