We had less than 10 miles to do today so we didn’t push to get up and out early. Still, we were up at a little after six, had scramble eggs and toast for breakfast, packed up and were out the door by 7:20am. We walked through town and dropped Sally’s pack at the Xardin Cafe on the corner facing the bay, then walked across town to the ocean side of the peninsula and followed the road along the Atlantic out of town.
We had been impressed with all the new granite trail markers to this point once we had entered Galacia clear back in O Cebreiro a couple weeks ago. There must be thousands of them, one at each turn of the trail. But, for this section between these two seaside towns would they continue?
The map on FarOut showed the route leaving the highway, following a small dirt road downhill, curving around a bit and then joining a paved road, about 0.8 miles distance in total. However, there was not a stone marker indicating the route left the highway. Is the trail less well marked on this section? We got to the bottom of the draw. The route ended in chest high grass and bushes. A faint trail was visible in the weeds, but not one trampled by all the foot traffic one would suspect on this route. Still, how many people walk between Muxia and Fisterra? Sally was insistent that this couldn’t be right. I showed her the map on my phone, the GPS indicating we were exactly on route. Rather than get wet in the grass soaked with morning dew we decided to retrace our steps back up to the highway. About 40’ back we noticed a somewhat brushy side road we had neglected on the way down and followed it rather than climb back to the highway. This somewhat followed FarOut’s route and eventually got us back to the paved Road and the stone markers, which when observed in reverse clearly showed the paved road and not the brushy road as the correct path. I made a mental note to contact FarOut and have them correct the route on their app.
We continued uphill for a couple miles until we gained the ridge, about 4.5 miles completed. Here we sat under the giant wind turbines and enjoyed the beautiful morning, the early sun and had a snack. About a dozen people had passed us by this time, all going the same way as us.
We followed the markers all the way to Lires, recalling some of the landmarks along the way from four years earlier. We stopped a little more than a mile from Lires and had lunch, meat and cheese on bread, potato chips and cookies, then continued to town. We climbed up to the apartment we had rented for the night. It was only a few minutes past noon so we sat down at the cafe and had a Coke. I texted the landlords via the Booking dot com app to announce we were here and to ask if we could get into the room early. About a minute later the waitress approached us with her phone and asked if we were the senders. She took us up the outside stairway to our two bedroom apartment, now unnecessarily big with the absence of Becky.
We rested for an hour, writing and checking the news on our phones, then donned our shoes and walked through this tiny town. We found an albergue lower on the hill with a cafe and stopped in for a Coke. The kid at the desk and waiting tables (we were the only ones there and for all appearances nearly the only ones in the town) had an American accent. He delivers our drinks to our table and we ended up talking to him for 20 minutes. He was an import from Long Island New York and preferred Spain to the US, especially the Galacia region.
On our way back up the hill to our apartment we met an Italian woman who was very demanding and pushy, complaining the route in today was not pretty and generally dominating a pretty negative conversation. We also ran into Steve from Australia, someone we have seen nearly everyday for weeks. He is a very fit looking man in his 60’s, retired from teaching and just traveling as a new way of life.
We returned to the apartment, cooked potatoes, onions and sausage we had carried in Sally’s pack shipped from Muxia and talked with Pat on the phone. It was another amazing day.
Following the route out of town on the coastal road.
Up on top of the ridge
The beautiful stone markers placed at every intersection showing the way
The correction to the route I sent to FarOut’s support email address. They responded within 24 hours, saying they would fix it.
Our apartment at the top of the stairs.
The kitchen in our apartment
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