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Published: July 31st 2008
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We knew the was a risk of making errors when tracking a path backwards that is only marked in one direction. In fact we had already made one or two errors retracing our steps back down the Camino Frances to Melide. Unfortunately our first day go back up the Norte proved calamitous. We found our new way and for ten kilometres with gleaming new guide book, road signs and the ubiquitous shell symbol that marks the trail we made good progress. We only met one pilgrim who was coming the other way. He was on his bicycle and we had a warm exchange as it was a novel meeting on this path. On an equivalent stretch on our previous route we would have passed 50 to 100 pilgrims. We left Villouriz our second small village of the day full of enthusiasm for our new peaceful trail. Our first days destination was still about 23 kilometres away and there would be little more that tiny Galician farming hamlets to mark our route. It was here we made our error. Unfortunately it was to prove a big one. It would be three hours (16 kilometres and up and down over the same sizable
hill twice) before we discovered Villouriz was the place of our folly. We needed to keep the wind turbines on our right. Unfortunately these hill sides had been designated for one of Galicia's most important wind park developments and since the publication of our guide book last year this area and all the hills around were now peppered in wind turbines. We reached an incorrect consensus on our location and we just kept convincing ourselves we were ok making the surrounds fit our map and directions. When we finally arrived at a farmhouse at our farthest point of error and it quickly became apparent we must have gone more than a little awry. The kindly farmers who were trying to assist us all born and bread in that area had not heard of the place that we were searching. With our new guide book now slightly brown from the handling of most of the farming community we had encountered we turned back. When we returned to the hill top the maintenance men on the wind turbines were added to the list of those that could not unravel the mystery of our route. We trudged back to Villouriz the last point we knew was correct through what had become a burning hot afternoon. Three hours of hard walking had passed since we had last stood here. On our return an old lady rushed to our aid with copious glasses of cold water and she could also point us in the right direction. We were re-hydrated and back on our trail. Ten minutes later we hit a cross roads of in descript paths one of which was ours. We followed the most likely for five minutes only to be turned back by a rope strung across it. The next went to a house and another unmarked crossroads and the last petered out into a field. It was 5:30pm we had walked nearly 30 kilometres and make 10 kilometres progress to our destination (still 23 kilometres away) and we were clueless about our onwards path despite methodical investigation. We sat down hot, tired and smelly. We did not have enough food to carry on to our destination and we were in remote shop-less territory. Our only sure option for food was a bar five kilometres back down our path which we had passed much earlier. An hour later and we were in the bar provoking much excitement amongst the locals who it seemed had not seen a foreigner in this place for some time, if ever. We ate and drank inside the bar now better able to contemplate our predicament. We could find a spot to camp nearby and try again tomorrow at the indecipherable junction or we take the bitter pill that had bitten off more than we could chew. We had made one gross error today but it would only take several inevitable minor ones each day to lengthen our path significantly and with very few towns around this route directions, food and water were all in short supply. Tonight we would have to go back to Melide in search of a shower and bed and then think again tomorrow. With over 40 kilometres in our legs and not a bed to be found in Melide our shower that night was a quick clean in a fountain and home a surreptitious camping spot in a wood just out of town. We had been beaten but were left to revel in the wealth and tales of our long days adventure.
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