We avoided the rain today simply by walking away from it. We hadn’t seen a single vehicle or human for more than two hours climbing the hills outside of Mondonedo. Even passing through the tiny hamlets along the way produced not a single person, despite the presence of barking dogs and feral cats. It felt like Birte and I were walking through ghost towns, except that there were curtains hanging in the homes we passed by. It was so quiet I sometimes spoke to Birte in a whisper.
We opted for a longer route today, which was recommended by our host at the albergue, and which added three kilometers to our distance. The views were spectacular – long deep valleys, hill tops, eucalyptus forests, and more colors of green than we have names for. The eucalyptus trees are not native to Spain. They were brought here and thrived so well that they are a threat to the native oak trees. We particularly enjoyed the old buildings and tiny horreos that seem unique to this area.
We were hoping for coffee in Gontan, but when all three cafes were closed, Birte and I sat on a curb and ate bananas and cookies. Satiated, we walked up the next hill only to find an open cafe, where, of course, we dove into our third breakfast of the day. There, we were joined by Greg and Kaitlin and said hello to a few pilgrims we have seen from time to time along the Camino.
There haven’t been many pilgrims along the route since the trail split with the Camino Primitivo. In fact, I haven’t seen a single Camino cyclist since then. Yesterday, there were only eight people at our albergue in Mondonedo. So, you can imagine my shock when we rounded a corner outside Goiriz to find a string of pilgrims, more than 30 of them, walking the trail ahead of us. It was a pilgrim traffic jam!
Something snapped in my brain and my introverted self focused inward and walked straight through the lot of them, leaving my poor friends far behind. When I arrived in our destination city, Vilalba, I stopped and sat on a bench to wait for my friends. When they arrived, I apologized. “I couldn’t handle the crowd”, I explained. My friends were empathetic. After having been walking so long in relative solitude, they too had felt overwhelmed by the masses.
It’s Sunday in the Galician city of Vilalba. And nothing is open, not even a grocery store. We’re talking about dinner. If we can’t find a restaurant we like, we’ll have to pull our groceries together, which will mean a meal of cheese, bread, sliced meat, nuts, honey, and a bag of Fritos. Luckily, the vending machine at the albergue has beer.
I was sure I had bought a bag of peanuts yesterday, but I couldn’t find them in my food bag. I reached far down into the side pocket of my backpack, thinking I had put them in there, and my fingers went right through a rotting banana. Ewwww! How could a banana have hidden itself so well in my small pack?
The route markers in Galicia are unique. Each one provides us with the remaining distance to Santiago. 120 kilometers to go.
