Camino de Santiago

I should make an album of all the good doggies who have said hello.

Today was a fairly easy 23km. We woke rough: some folks woke up to loud alarms before 5am (not that unusual) then spent *an hour* getting out of the room.

It's hard to explain what an obnoxious breach of etiquette this is. Sleep is precious when one burns a few thousand calories each day and the norm is for quiet hours from 10pm to 6am. When folks wake before 6 the generally accepted thing to do is have your bag already packed and stealthily slip out of the room with minimal audio/light impact. You can arrange and adjust your gear in a hallway or common area.

Today's folk must have packed and repacked their crinkly plastic, ripped open velcro, and zipped and unzipped every pocket. They dropped things, they conversed, the 4 of them made at least 10 trips to the bathroom and used their phone lights to illuminate as much as possible.

All the while the rest of us did our best to pretend we would return to sleep for a few more moments. It didn't work.

But!
A little misty-morning yoga helped me restore some empathy and peace... Then the sun came out to make a beautiful morning.

We strolled an hour, chatted with cows, and found a tasty coffee and an enormous tortilla. Then my shoe broke (see other post).

We had some hills and got a sweeping panoramic view of the mist-filled valley to the South, the large moon to the West, a hazy sun to the East, and a golden pathway towards the North. Sometimes the hard climbs yield the greatest vistas.

As we get deeper into Galicia, the typical grain storage (corn?) buildings are more frequent. They're elevated to protect from animals and water, and decorated ... Just to be beautiful.

A dog said hi.

Oaks shaded us.

The Michael Jackson graffiti persists.

And eventually we stopped for a 2nd breakfast that included amazing honey-drenched crepes. To. Die. For.Read more