Day 4 - The peace in silence

 

We left Melide early... this was our hardest day.... basically we had squished 2 recommended days into one, resulting in a 20 ish mile odessey to complete today. 

Melide is also the place where the primitivo route (the one we were on) joined the Franco one. Thus in my head I had expectations of the route being much busier. Also given that we were counting down the miles to Santiago, I was expecting that much of the route would be alongside the road. From the bus on the way here I had seen pilgrims walking alongside the road and assumed that most of the route was like that. 

So once we left Melide I was expecting tarmac but to my surprise and delight, our path branched off very quickly onto gravel and into woods. We had passed some nice cottage like houses with views over the fields and the woods were full of Eucalyptus, with a smell that made all else suffer with insignificance. Today was absolutely about getting the miles done and although we had made tentative plans for stops at 5, 10 and 15 miles, it would be subject to change. 

Those early miles were full of chatting and laughter. Our trail song nearly completed with 4 verses though we decided that we should probably add a 5th verse to celebrate walking into Santiago, when all of our trail silliness will be revealed. We passed over streams and babbling brooks and wondered what the difference between a stream and a brook is (answers on a postcard). We were on fire! So much so that we blasted through the 5 miles and decided to push on to Arzúa before we stopped for a break. There we could get a bit of early lunch. Arzúa is the little town where it was suggested for pilgrims to stop again for the night but given we had fewer days to do the 100km in, we squished this day together with the next suggested day to O Pedrouzo. Arzúa came up very quickly... 8 miles done in very little time. Famous for its cheese and described as a bustling market town, we awaited our arrival with high expectations... that were dashed pretty much the moment we tried to find food. It was about 11am... and everywhere that served food, was shut. On enquiry, it seemed like the general openong hours was 13:30 which was no use to us at all. We did find one Café where we grabbed a coffee and a pastry. 

Whilst we sat there, the occasional spot of rain became a bit of a downpour. Fortunately the worst of it passed whilst we were inside. 

We set off again, thinking that we would stop again in a few miles if we found food. 

We walked out of Arzúa onto a gravel track and no sooner were we about to go into some woods, we saw on the left hand side, a place where we could get a stamp for our Camino passports, and a nun. It wouldn't have been surprising to see a nun, given the route we were on, but this was our first! We dropped a small donation in the box and in halting Spanish explained where we were from... 

it got a bit more complicated when she pointed to my SPOT tracker and asked what it was for, so with a few spanish words and a bad impression of a rescue helicopter, I conveyed the use of the tracker. She seemed fascinated and even more so when I went on to explain that it meant my friends and family could track me. We left with a Buen Camino and started down the track, when Sonia piped up that we should get a photo with the only nun we had seen on the trail... so we turned round, walked back up the hill (very unlike sonia to suggest going up a hill) and requested a selfie with the nun who was beaming from ear to ear. She directed us to a place underneath a sign and then once the photo was taken, asked us to wait a minute and hurried round the back. She came back with a couple of cloth bracelets and presented them to us. They had some footsteps printed on them and the words Quien Camina con Dios camina alegre translated as 'he who walks with God, walks happily'. Now although I'm not religious, I did appreciate the sentiment and it was done with such niceness (for want of a better word) that in some ways, it totally made my Camino. A bit like my trail angels on my travels. 

We walked onwards... the sky darkening to an ever greater threat that it would soon lash it down, jackets went on to protect from the wind that had suddenly whipped up and we strode forward. Finally we found a place advertising bacon and eggs! I had been dreaming of bacon and eggs for breakfast since we had got here but it didn't seem to be a staple of Spanish breakfast habits.  So we veered off the trail, stamped our Camino passports and sat down to await our order. 

I was not disappointed at all. Perfect in every way except portion size, frankly I could have done with double. It had started raining again, but having removed my jacket, I was still ok and we pushed on, but quickly the rain became an absolute downpour and the rain stung my eyes. I stopped and put on my jacket, watching other camino pilgrims take shelter in the cafés by the side of the trail of which there were a couple at this point. On we ploughed, getting soaked until the trees gave us a little shelter at times. 

Sonia had fallen a little silent at this point  and I was quite content in my little wet world. The smell of the Eucalyptus was enhanced by the rain and fresh wet forest smell was assaulting my senses in the best way possible. It was glorious. I don't think Sonia would agree though. 

The silence stretched out, each of us with our own thoughts. I was trying to distract myself from a flare up of plantar fasciitis and Sonia had been struggling with her first ever blister, which was now compeeded up. Our pace was still pretty good. Unfortunately on a stop for Sonia to remover her rain jacket, 10 minutes before she had to put it back on, we got caught by a group of kids, music blaring, chattering and generally breaking the tranquility. I slowed down in the hope they would disappear up ahead but this was the French way and busier than the primitivo, so we just got caught up by more people. It wasn't like the London Underground, in terms of people volume, but it was certainly a good few more people than we had gotten used to over the last few days on the Primitivo. 

We bumped into a few people that we had seen in the hostel... a german couple called M and M (trail name) a dutch woman and a frenchman and an australian woman. There had been very few if any people from England on this route, mostly Spanish with a smattering of other nationalities. We exchanged a few pleasantries but didn't linger for long conversations.... it was the way we all wanted. 

We stopped again at about 16.5 miles... feet hurting, legs starting to ache. The coffee was pretty good and the weight off the feet even better. We were so intent on getting back on the trail, we almost forgot to pay. 

4 ish miles to go. By now most steps were painful but the leg metronome kept going. I then got a phone call from the place I thought we were staying... unfortunately I had accidently booked for 2025.

Fortunately she had another room we could stay in and promised me she would send me the address, which she duly did, along with a phone number to ring when we had got there finally! 

Those last few miles were pretty tough. We had kept up the same average pace as day 1 on the trail which considering the up and down nature of all we had crossed was pretty good going. Finally we reached O Pedrouzo and branched off the Camino to head into the town and our room for the night. We passed places to eat and suddenly realised we were hungry but first our room. One phone call and a couple of minutes wait and a gentleman came round the corner jangling the keys. Unfortunately I had sat down, and getting back up to follow him was no easy feat... 

Having acomplished that, paid for the room. and dumped our stuff, I sank onto the bed, sans shoes. It was the best feeling in the world! 

It had been a long, pretty hard day but we had made it and that left us with a mere 12 miles to Santiago.... 

... if we can move tomorrow 😁

Buenas noches