26.6 km / 16.5 miles

This morning started out with another beautiful sunrise. Despite staying in a nearly non-existent town, I had a good afternoon chatting with my new friend from Ireland followed by a fun communal dinner at the albergue. Those kinds of afternoons/evenings are what make the Camino the Camino. I only wish that every night of this Camino could have been that way, since meeting new people from all over, sharing stories and laughing together is what keeps me coming back here. The meals and drinks I’ve shared with fellow pilgrims on this journey have been great though.

Every Camino is going to be different though and include its own variety of highs and lows. I have yet to have a day where I feel good walking all day on this Camino. I’ve also been sick with a cold for the last few days (not Covid as I took a test that was negative and I only just had Covid a little over a month ago). The coughing from that has made sleep challenging and just being sick can zap your energy. On the bright side, I’ve met some fun people from all over. Hoping I can stay in touch with some of them and maybe cross paths again

The walk this morning was prettier than I expected it would be. But as the path lead in to the larger town of Melide, it turned far less interesting. Always leading into or out of a bigger can be a bit on the boring side. Once I got through Melide, it turned into more of what I expected – pretty farmland a little off the main highway.

I took a lot of little breaks today for Coke, a geocache and even for a beer when I knew I was within a mile of my pension. At the last stop, there were tons of pilgrims, but I didn’t know any of them. These were likely all folks from the French route. Some you could tell were walking the full 500 miles or more and some were just walking the 100km to Santiago. I’m not expecting to run into too many people I know until Santiago – though a few will be staying in the same town as I am tomorrow evening so hopefully we can meet up.

Only two days of walking left until Santiago. Tomorrow will be the last bigger day of about 27 km and then Tuesday should be right around 20 km to reach the cathedral.