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Published: December 2nd 2017
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Ponte Sampaio at Arcade Wednesday, November 22nd still in Redondela. Another vacation day lost. I had a bad night with lots of pain where my leg joins my foot, plus the new blisters. I’m exhausted and so we decided to stay in the apartment for another day. We slept until 10:30. I stayed off my feet for most of the day. Charlie made breakfast – scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, yogurt and orange juice – the best breakfast we’ve had in a long time. We planned to ship my backpack ahead to our next place to give my feet a break, but they wanted 25 euro (vs. the 5 euro regular charge) because it’s off-season. Yikes. I’ll pass. There’s a 70%!c(MISSING)hance of rain tomorrow. I’m not optimistic about our walk tomorrow.
Thursday, November 23rd, to Pontevedra, Hotel Madrid, 20 km. In order to receive the certificate of completion (the Compostella) you must walk the final 100 kilometers of your Camino. No buses, trains or taxis, despite tiredness and sore feet. Thankfully, it stopped raining by 8, and after breakfast we were on the road again by 8:30. We followed the narrow streets up the hills out of town, and when we got
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La Virgin Peregrina to the turnoff for the 1
st mountain (some would call a hill), we decided to take the highway around the hill instead. It wasn’t too bad, with wide shoulders, and when we got to Arcade we hopped back on the Camino, crossed the river on the old stone bridge, walked through vineyards and again needed to come to a decision about the next section, which one of our books described as bouldered and stone paths with a steep descent into Pontevedra. The steep descents are what kill my feet and bring on blisters. As we sat on the side of the road a Spanish gentleman pointed to the Camino route, telling us to follow the arrows. I told him my feet were “mal” and he said the route ahead was “muy duro” – very hard - and pointed instead to another route that would lead us back to the highway. So, to my later regret, we took it, along a very busy highway with narrow shoulders and big trucks whizzing by. It’s not likely we’ll venture from the Camino route tomorrow, boulders or not. We’re in a so-so hotel, lousy internet and heat. It’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow.
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Bridge coming out of Pontevedra early in the morning Friday, November 24th, to Caldas de Reis, Hotel O’Cruceiro, 22.7 kms. We followed the arrows today. It was lightly sprinkling when we started out – a nice walk out of Pontevedra. We stopped at the Iglesia de la Virgen Peregrina, a round church built in 1778 that features Mary dressed as a pilgrim over the altar. We walked through woods and country roads with little traffic. And we met fellow pilgrims! Six of them, going to Santiago and 4 going in the opposite direction. We met Andrew from Poland and Carolus from Holland and his wife Flor (they live in Majorca, and then saw them at a café about ½ way and talked again. Shortly after that it started raining hard and continued on and off until we reached Caldas. I was surprised at how soaked our rain coats and pants were. We arrived at our hotel looking like drowned rats, and the man in reception immediately gave us the key and sent us to our room to dry off before checking in. We spent most of the evening drying out our rain gear, shoes (soaked through) and clothes where the water somehow soaked through our backpacks’ rain covers.
Fortunately, the hotel also has an albergue (although it’s closed for the season), and we were able to use the albergue’s dryer. We have a long day tomorrow – 25 kms or more. The rain is supposed to stop tonight. I hope. Only 2 more days to Santiago.
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Robert C. Deming
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Hanging in there!
Adversity overcome! I love it!