26.1 km / 16.1 miles

Today was going to be a good start leaving Lugo after a rest day. Until it wasn’t. I loved my little apartment in Lugo, until I realized that I got locked into the building. When checking in, there was no indication that a gate would be going down and staying shut until who knows when in the morning.

I had been shown the key box where I should leave my keys for the apartment, which was around the corner from the door to the apartment. I did what I was told to do and put the keys in the box around 7am. I walked downstairs and outside another locked door to find the security gate down. I looked everywhere for a button or something to open it as well as looked for other ways out. I found I was stuck in this hallway with no access to my apartment anymore and no way out. Perhaps there had been a key on the set of keys I had turned in, but it was never explained to me that something like that would be needed.

Fellow pilgrims from the nearby hostel passed by and some tried to help me lift the gate, with no luck. A street sweeper person drove by and I flagged him down for help and he said I’d have to wait 30 minutes for it to open. But being that it was Saturday, I didn’t know if 8am was the magic time. 8am was also about 40 minutes away.

I kept calling every number on Booking.com where I made the reservation and called the number of the person who checked me in – no answer after several tries. I tried calling the other apartments in the building, with no luck. Meanwhile my friend from Belgium had seen my Facebook post and showed up to see if he could help. A little before 8, I finally got through to a lady managing the apartment complex. Another pilgrim spoke to her for me in Spanish. She said to wait 10 minutes. Right after she hung up, the gate opened.

I don’t know if the timer for the gate was set to 7:50am or if the manager had opened it for me remotely. Either way, after 45 minutes of feeling frantic, I was free! Definitely not the kind of challenge I expected to have on the Camino. I also wonder what one would do in an emergency situation being stuck behind the gate.

The walk today was quick and mostly painless. My feet are getting sore when walking on pavement or rocks for a better day part of the day and today was often on a paved roadway.

Leaving Lugo was really pretty along the river, then the path stayed in rural farmland the rest of the day. No more big mountains, just rolling foothills and lots of green scenery.

Today I started walking with my friend from Belgium. Later I walked a bit with another from Czechia. Then I finished the day with the friend from Texas. Definitely helps having people to talk to while on the way.

Tomorrow the path will join with the French Way and the number of pilgrims will likely quadruple or grow by even more. Many more walk the most popular French route. And those that can’t take several weeks off will walk just the last 100km to earn their compostela. So the feeling of the Camino will change drastically by the end of tomorrow.

The town I’m in tonight consists of about three albergues and almost nothing else. While I’ll appreciate the location in the morning, my albergue is a .3 mile walk passed the rest of the “town.” So other people I know are close, but not that close. I may venture up to the other albergues as I think one has a bit more of a store than mine does.