Oh, my! What a tale for today.

Last night we found a great little place around the corner from the albergue to have a falafel dinner. It was plentiful and delicious.

Back at the albergue everyone started settling in. Fortunately they have quiet hours by 10 pm. But that really didn’t mean it was quiet. There were only 16 of us there but oh, boy, it sounded like a pig pen with all the snorting and snuffling and snoring and coughing and even a woman loudly speaking German in her sleep! Needless to say there was no rest for the weary. People started getting up just after 5 so we gave up and got moving. We quietly moved our packs out to the outer room to pack up, ate a little breakfast and headed out before sunrise.

That was the good part. The sunrise was beautiful, the temperature nice and cool and pleasant all round. The locals that were up were friendly and wished us well along the way.

The path followed along a canal next to farm fields which was a nice improvement over all the factories. First we saw fields that had been tomatoes, still with lots on the ground. Then it was tomato fields being harvested with a fascinating tractor, spewing the tomatoes into a truck and the stems out the back onto the ground. Next we saw fields of peppers then grape vines.

We stopped at a tiny place for coffee, finding a few of our fellow pilgrims from the hostel. The kids were good about stopping regularly for me to tend to my sore feet and give me breaks. We found a park area with picnic tables to eat our lunch which they had carried.

And then a decision has to be made – call it quits for the day or push on another 13 km with no services before reaching Santerem. That’s one of the big issues with this Camino – long stretches at the beginning when you don’t have your trail legs yet with few services. Well, I decided we ought to try to push on, once we filled up our water, as it’s been hot with little shade.

Not my best decision. While we had a few fun spots along the way, seeing the river again and a crazy swing in the middle of nowhere, my feet went from bad to worse. Eventually I didn’t feel as if I could even put pressure on my right foot. I won’t show you my feet, but trust me, they aren’t looking good.

We were still a good 5-6 miles from Santerem, out on a remote unpaved farm road but we called to see if an Uber would pick me up. Amazingly one did! A delightful driver actually found us and drove me into town to the hostel we were hoping to find. I’ve secured a private room for the three of us so we can get a good night’s sleep and figure out what’s next.

87 degrees, 15.1 miles and 37,989 steps.