Jimandi

Walked Today: 7.2 mi / Camino2022: 332 mi

Breakfast, at Bar Teatro, just across the street from Pension Luis, got us off to a good start this morning as we walked out of Arzúa in the perfect-for-walking 54F at 8:30.

There were more pilgrims passing us today but not in an unpleasing way. The majority of these pilgrims seem more serious/mature, more focused and still noticeably happy and excited as we get closer to Santiago. Its a good mixture of 100km walkers and those who have come much longer distances like us. Buen Caminos were exchanged with most every pilgrim that passed us.

The scenery and terrain were also pleasant and distracting from an occasional hard pull up a small hill or cautiously restrained pace of a steep decline.

Most of the time we were walking in forests or in tree shaded paths along farm fences. We spent much less time along roads, either large or small.

We even passed a couple of vendors along the way selling items and offering to stamp credentials… sometimes for a donation. We passed on both but were more amused by the third member of the enterprise, who heehawed us as we passed.

As the sun began to rise, unlike our normal mode of seeking shade to walk in, we steered to the sunny spots to warm us in the high 50-low 60F air. But by mid morning, jackets were off and we were back in short- sleeve shirts again.

The less difficulty in today’s walk led us to be more observant of our surroundings and to compare changes in this part of the Camino compared to what we remember from 2019. The changes included new bars and albergues, new or repaired fences and walls and many more Kilometer-stone distance to Santiago/directional markers at every place a road or path intersects the Camino. This has been a continuing theme throughout our walk throughout Galícia, but was especially apparent today. These are relative changes as compared to our perception of the lesser amount of change in the SJPDP through Castile walk. It’s no surprise that because most, nearly 4 times as many, pilgrims walk only the last 100 km, this is where the keepers of the Camino would put the most effort into upgrades in infrastructure and services.

We arrived in Salceda and at Albergue Turistico Salceda around noon and had lunch in the restaurant while waiting to check-in at 1:00. This us our fourth visit to this property and we have a special affection for the owner, who helped us when Linda was struggling with some spider bites in 2015. His name, appropriately, is Santiago.

During lunch we had a nice chat with a pilgrim couple from Colombia. He is a retired dairy farmer and he and his wife are walking from Sarria to Santiago.

We had several nice exchanges with Santiago and his daughter, Liudmila, reminiscing about our previous 3 visits. It was a very special reunion.

3 MORE DAYS TO SANTIAGO

Walked Today: 5.6 mi / Camino 2022: 324 mi

As we left Boente we stopped at the Iglesia Parroquia Santiago de Boente. A young priest, seated just inside the church stamped our credentials and explained that during the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, Santiago was closed, so this small church became the end of the Camino until the epidemic was over.

The walk today had a lot of ups and downs but they pretty much balanced out. The finish into Arzúa was a nice flat dirt path separated from the road by a hedge. Overall it was a good workout, but not too much.

We took a short break for OJ at Albergue Santiago in Castañeda, We’ve stayed here twice before, but the husband and wife owners were not to be seen and we didn’t ask. In the outside terrace were thick overhead vines with a plentiful fruit. A closer look revealed them to be kiwis. We asked a local pilgrim who said kiwis grow very well in the Glacian climate and soil.

4 MORE DAYS TO SANTIAGO!

Walked Today: 7.2 mi / Camino2022: 319 mi

It was 52F and almost cloudless when we started from Coto this morning. It’s supposed to be warmer today so Jim went back to his short sleeve tee and carried a jacket just in case. Linda was not so brazen but still went to a lighter jacket.

Only a few minutes into the walk we passed through Leboreiro, a well maintained hamlet including Iglesia de Santa María de las Nieves.

A church legend says that a mysterious spring appeared that glowed in the night. In searching for the source of the spring, the villagers unearthed a statue of the virgin and took it to the church. But that night the virgin went right back to the spring. After a few days of back and forth, a clever sculptor interpreted her move as a desire to be outside and carved an image of the statue and placed it over the church door and the statue has remained at the church altar ever since.

We can see the statue of the virgin over the church door, but we can’t confirm that the statue of the virgin is inside this Sunday morning or any of the other 3 mornings we have passed the small church, because the door has always been locked.

Positioned just outside the church yard was a Horreo type structure called a “cabaceiro”. As we walked out of the village, we looked back and captured this interesting sunrise.

Walking on toward Melide, we enjoyed the different methods of buffering the path from warehouses and other commercial buildings. This tree lined section was actually quite pretty.

We stopped in Melide for breakfast at a relatively new place called “Cafeteria Alborada“. And we hearby declare it has one of the best if not the best tostadas on the Camino. Linda also inspected the ladies room and declared it was hands-down the nicest, cleanest, well equiped and most pleasant ladies restroom on the Camino. Jim then did a followup and checked out the mens, which without-a-doubt is the best men’s public restroom on the Camino.

We shared our assessments with our waiter who seemed pleased and speechless, so we decided not to elaborate.

Our inspection completed we got back to our walk through Melide which led back into the forests and farmland toward Boente. The following are some scenery we observed along the 3 mile stretch:

Tomorrow morning we leave Melide behind and begin our final 5 days on Camino2022. One additional reason we chose Melide as a base for three days was its reputation for Pulpo (octopus) and Padron peppers. We’ve done a pretty good sampling, especially last night at Pulperis Garnacha. Have a look:

5 MORE DAYS TO SANTIAGO

Walked Today: 8.7 mi / Camino2022: 312 mi

Our taxi driver from yesterday met us at 8:30 and took us back to Lestedo to begin our walk today.

The pilgrim traffic was very light as we left Lestedo at 8:55 and it stayed that way for the entire morning. So why was the traffic less compared to previous days?

Most pilgrims, especially the younger ones, stay in Albergues and typically have to vacate by 8:00 am. Pilgrim groups are usually staying where there are more beds available, like Portomarín or Palas de Rei or Melide. So, by leaving Lestedo at nearly 9:00 a.m., all the groups were ahead of us and the ones behind us were too far behind to catch us.

After 3 miles we walked through a small group of stone houses and spotted a very old Horreo in a back yard. A few hundred yards further we walked through a sports camp complex with on-site housing for participants and impressive futbol fields with artificial turf, a indoor swimming pool, a large basketball gym, etc.

Next, we entered the town of Palas de Rei and stopped at St Mark’s church for a sello (stamp for our credential).

A minimum of two sellos a day are needed on a pilgrim’s credential for the final 100 km walked into Santiago to qualify for a Compostela.

Leaving Palas de Rei, we got back on the dirt path again and spent the next several miles alternating between dirt paths and sections of narrow local roads. We stopped for hot chocolate in the charming hamlet of San Julian (Xúlian, in Galícian).

We contined for another 2 hours through farmland and forests and made one final stop in Campanilla for lunch… tired from an 8 mile plus walk.

Our tummies full and bodies somewhat recovered, we walked another quarter-mile to a new albergue/bar/beer garden in Coto and arranged for a taxi to take us to Melide.

So, yesterday we reported that we had lunch and spent the night in Melide, even though we stopped walking in Lestedo. Let us explain:

Over a week ago, while waiting to get into our room in Villafranca del Bierzo, everything we had heard indicated the Camino was gonna be full for the last 100km. This is typically true, but especially true in this “Holy Year”. We were monitoring the number of Compostelas being given out to pilgrims in Santiago daily. The number has been 2500-3000 per day. When we walked the Camino in 2019, we had to wait 5 hours in line to get our Compostela the first week in October and only about 2000 compostelas were given out that day. Our fears were confirmed yesterday, when the pención manager said she was getting many calls every day from pilgrims who were frantic because they couldn’t find a place to stay for the night.

So, back to Villafranca, while we waited for our room, we emailed, called, used Booking.com to reserve available places to stay all the way to Santiago. We were missing two or three locations, so we did some calculations and decided we needed to employ “taxi hopping” to manage our lodging selections. This resulted in booking Casa Cines in Pintin and Pención Orois in Melide for three consecutive nights each to use as a base to walk the sections of the Camino where lodging was not available.

We’ve successfully completed the Casa Cines plan and are now implementing the Melide plan.

We walked from Gonzar to Lestedo yesterday, taxied to Melide for the night, taxied back to Lestedo this morning and walked to Coto today. Tomorrow morning a taxi will take us back to our stop point in Coto and we’ll walk through Melide to Boente and taxi back to Melide to spend the night. The following morning, we’ll check out of Pención Orois, taxi to Boente and began our walk, continuing on normally from there on through the remaining villages/towns for the remaining days to Santiago.

Some purists might suggest we should just take our chances as I’m sure many pilgrims do. We believe the Camino presents many challenges that a pilgrim need overcome to earn the Compostela. Having personally dealt with arriving at a town and finding you have no place to stay or having to spend hours at the end of a long walk, walking more miles to find a place to stay or having to stay in a place that does not meet personal standards of cleanliness, safety, etc. have taught these two pilgrims to do some extra planning and be a little creative, in order to avoid unnecessary occurrences that can detract from an otherwise enjoyable Camino.

We believe as a pilgrim, you can and should do the Camino in a way that works for you and not necessarily adhering strictly to a guide or anyone else. In the end, your Camino is personal and is what you make it.

6 MORE DAYS TO SANTIAGO

Walked Today: 8.5 mi / Camino2022: 303 mi

We were so surprised when we looked outside this morning and saw clear sky with no fog and no rain. It was a little chilly at 47F but we weren’t complaining.

The Camino went through a couple of small villages and passed a large Castro that Jim explored and photographed in 2019, so we walked on, back along the highway for a mile or so,

then crossed over to a secondary road for another mile to what we call the “zig-zag” where we maneuvered through a small traffic circle associated with an exit off the highway, angling back onto another small road that took us to Ventas de Narón, where we stopped for breakfast.

As you can see from the photo, which was on the wall in the bar of Casa Molar, the village consists of two farms, two albergues, a small chapel originally owned by the Knights Templar and what appears to be a nice private residence at village center.

We have stopped here for breakfast every Camino and Linda liked their toast, so we decided to continue the tradition today.

We walked on for another couple of miles and passed through the charming village of Ligonde. We kept snapping photos of things we saw… here are a few:

We continued on, walked a few steps with a lady from California who had left her poles in Ligonde, walked back to retrieve them and was going to rejoin her daughter who was waiting for her at a bar up the road.

We stopped walking in Lestedo for the day after 8 plus miles. Jim flagged down a taxi and we headed to Melide. More about that tomorrow.

Walked Today: 5.7 mi / Camino2022: 294 mi

We had breakfast at Casa Cines then said our goodbyes to Núria’s mom and dad and left for Portomarín.

As we walked through Portomarín the streets and open shops were filled with teens. It began to rain lightly, so we stopped under an awning to put on our ponchos. We walked out of town, across the bridge and began the steep climb out of the valley.

About half-way up the mountain we were engulfed by a wave of about 50 or so really young pilgrims.

For the next mile, more waves rolled past us until finally we were spared further surges of humanity along the path. We actually had the Camino to ourselves for a mile or so…the first time in two days… and we enjoyed it while it lasted.

Our walk was relatively short, mostly uphill, a few steep places but mostly gradual.

We had a simple lunch while waiting for our room. Immediately after getting into our room, we gathered all dirty clothes washed and dried everything using the Hosteria facilities… 4€ to wash, 4€ to dry. We did our other chores, napped a bit and split a pizza for supper.

We’ve got another week of walking to get to Santiago and we’re anxious to finish. The last part is always the hardest for us because the change in atmosphere and struggle with the crowds is so different than that between SJPDP and Sarria… and it seems to be more true for each of our Caminos.