15.5 miles

6:15 am to 1:00 pm walk time

Back to a more average length Camino day today. Three of us started before dark. As soon as we left the albergue, I saw a shooting star. It appeared to be headed toward Santiago, so it was like it was leading the way. We needed our lights shortly after leaving the village as we had a climb through the woods on an old Roman road.

Luckily it was the hardest climb of the day. We slowly descended into the city of Pontevedra. I got to log a virtual cache near the Peregrino Cathedral by taking a group photo there.

After leaving the city it was a beautiful walk, luckily mostly flat with the occasional rolling hills. Since there’s a small geocache power trail going into and out of the city, I got to log a few finds along the way. I figure it might take me a few more caminos on this path to get them all. Reason to come back!

After taking a short break about 1km from our albergue we got word that 7 of 16 beds were taken up at the albergue we wanted to stay at in Barros. So we hurried our way there. Turns out, Stefano was able to secure our beds. The owner of the albergue had gone to get food for the communal dinner and told other pilgrims to let people know to put their stuff on a bed to claim it. One aspect of the Camino that isn’t the most fun is worrying about getting a bed. Most of the time it’s fine and there are plenty of places to stay. But in the case of today, it would have been a 6km walk to the next albergue. Not something any of us were excited about doing.

The albergue we are staying in is pretty funky. I walked in to the Beatles playing which was a good sign to me. One of the owners and I already bonded over a love for the Beastie Boys. There’s also a big party at the local church tonight that’s supposed to go until 1am. So we’ll see if we get much sleep. We saw people dressed in what looked like traditional Galician wear and they were already letting off fireworks.

Before heading this way I wrote a blog about the signs of the Camino. So today I thought I’d share some of the many signs that guide you along The Way.

Less than 60km to go to Santiago now. We should be able to break that up nicely over the next three days.