Month: June 2018

Today was an early start and a lovely short walk of about 20 km into Santiago in time for noon mass.

An early start:

Happy hikers:

Second breakfast:

A selfie at Monte de Gozo and the final descent:

Entering the city:

Getting to the old city:

Here at last:

After the mass, we met our host families.  We entered mass as pilgrims and ended as students.

 

Today we had a relatively short 20km hike to the town of O Pedrouzo, also known as Arca.  Okay, it was short compared with yesterday.

The weather was nice, the vibes were chill.

Here we are leaving in the morning:

Eucalyptus forests, a beer albergue (?), and some bikers (fairly friendly).

Second Breakfast:

Lunch first, then some shopping for dinner.  (Not pictured, washing clothes so that our host families have a nice first impression of us…).

O Pedrouzo/Arca was having a fair!  We showed up a bit too early–apparently the festivities only really got started around midnight.  We could hear said festivities until around 3:30 a.m.  Unfortunately we had to go to bed early to get up for an early start tomorrow.

Leaving for the carnival:

A bit empty:

But Annie takes the opportunity to beat Rouselle at air hockey.  She takes her air hockey seriously.

The thing about today is that there was a city called Melide in the middle of it, about 15 km in.  This is about the length of a short day on the Camino.  So it kind of sort of felt like we should be done when we got to Melide.  But we weren’t–we were just halfway there.

That’s okay, we took it easy, had a few breaks, and made it to Arzua without any tears.

Leaving early after breakfast:

Our eyes are bright, our tails are bushy.

Happy peregrinos on the trail:

Taking a break:

Finding the right route after a wrong turn out of Melide:

Hello Mr. Horse!

Here is a horrero:  it’s a Galician grain storage silo.  It holds the grain up in the air where it’s less damp and where there’s more air circulation.  There are also stone disks at the top of the legs to stop the rats from climbing to the grain.

Finally here!  Time to shop for and make dinner.