We had a nice dinner of falafel, sharing the dinner with a German woman, Stefi, who was staying at the same hostel. Best of all, the restaurant was just around the corner, so I could walk there in my flip flops. Didn’t want to get my nicely dried shoes wet again before morning.

That came soon enough. A good night’s sleep, then the usual pack up, breakfast, then out the door. Miraculously it was not raining! Dark still, but it made for a beautiful view as we crossed the river. It felt great to be walking in dry shoes and with no parka on.

Just like yesterday the amount of hikers is crazy, but worse are the cyclists. They all ride mountain bikes and zoom along madly, most not even giving any sort of warning. How there haven’t been accidents, I have no idea.

Course the no rain situation wasn’t to continue. The rain began, our umbrellas came out. A nice wooded pathway went quite a long way, but the puddles and mud made it less desirable than it would be otherwise. Such is fall in Galicia.

We finally found an open cafe, but was it ever crowded! Hikers and backpacks and rain gear everywhere! We were just sitting down when Heather appeared. She was happy to join us. Eventually we had to venture back out.

That, except a bus stop bench was our only stop today. That does make it harder for me. The solution: put in an earbud and listen to a book. Takes one’s mind off of things.

We did pass some lovely wood carvings and a long grape trellis, which was pleasant. It was there that I passed the marker showing we had 50 km to go to reach Santiago!

Finally we approached our booked albergue. It, too, was packed, as it is also a restaurant. Mandy went in to see about our reservation and was told “Sit! Eat! Then we’ll get to that”. Okay, that suited us. Especially since Heather was already there and soon the New Zealand couple we had met, also joined us.

We are now resting in our bunk room having showered. I was happy to find a hair dryer for somewhat drying my shoes. Mandy is working diligently booking our next few night’s stays as it’s getting tougher to do the closer to Santiago we get.

12.25 miles with 28,290 steps