Today isn’t a particularly long day. We decided to leave at 7:00am. Sally and I were ready to go, but Becky wanted to get a couple cups of coffee before she hit the road so we headed out, confident she would catch up with us soon. This portion of the route is just like the previous day, the trail climbs a small ridge then descends to a creek, then repeats. Everything is verdant, green and lush. The tread is mostly small tan gravel with occasional patches of mud.
We thought Becky should have caught us but she was no where to be seen. I texted and waited an hour but got no response. I called a number of times but she did not pick up. About 30 minutes later I got a text from her. She asked if she had already paid for her room in Barcelona. What? That was out of the clear blue sky. Was she thinking of going home early? We walked and wondered what was going on.
We soon connected with a family from England, mom, dad and there 27 year old daughter. I walked with the daughter for over an hour and we talked about life choices, whether to work to buy material goods and be slaves to them or to travel and see the world and come home to a more spartan home. We both agreed that getting trapped by possessions was not our preference.
We all stopped at an outdoor bar along the way. We each put our offerings of crackers and cookies from our packs on the table to share and had a nice visit. The Georgia Boys arrived with Becky. They sat at a table nearby. We visited with them for a few minutes, then continued on our way.
Eventually, we dropped into the river valley that the town of Portomarin sits in. The river was dammed and the town had to be moved up the hillside to escape the newly formed lake waters. This included an ancient church that was disassembled stone by stone and reconstructed over a period of 5 years.
We checked in at our albergue, a room with two bunk beds and private bath. We wanted to go to town to buy groceries, but all the grocery stores were closed until five. Becky headed out to have a drink with Nico. We walked down into town and had a coke and a beer, then walked to the grocery store to buy dinner, breakfast and lunch. We prepared steamed mussels and rice with vegetables for dinner. It was delicious. I stayed down in the kitchen area, watched a Ted Lasso episode, wrote in my blog and talked with owner until 9:15pm, then returned to our room, brushed my teeth and crawled onto my top bunk for the night. Great day!!
Rosie from New Zealand climbs the stairs into Portomarin
Our albergue in Portomarin
We have shared albergues with this couple from South Korea numerous times over the past week. Don’t know their names.
After spending two wordless nights as roommates with this man we wanted to take our picture with him. He doesn’t speak English, but was pleased with the attention we paid him.
The church they moved up the hill
No comments:
Post a Comment