Day 27: Portomarin – Palas De Rei

Thursday 23 April 2009
Via GONZAR – CASTROMAIOR – HOSPITAL DE LA CRUZ – VENTAS DE NARON – LIGONDE – EIREXE – PORTOS / LESTEDO

Approx 25km

A really lovely day today. The weather was perfect – nice and warm with a cool breeze coming along every time it seemed to get too hot. We walked through stunning forest paths, and apart from lots of steep inclines and descents (again), it was a really nice walk.

I set off with the gang again – Megan and Jeff, Jon and Rebecca, and as usual we all spent time talking together. I really enjoyed this part of my journey – walking with this group of special people. Today I spent about an hour walking and talking with Megan, and then I dropped back and hung out with Jon – never boring! Today’s topics ranged from conspiracy theories (I’d just seen Zeitgeist in Ireland), to trying to remember lyrics from old school rap songs…. Always such a wide variety of topics!

We stopped about 8km in at Gonzar for a cup of coffee and a sit down to rest from the heat before heading off again. We later stopped for a lunch of bocadillas and sidras in Ligonde and when we left, we discovered we had gained another member to our posse… A gorgeous black dog who trotted along with us for ages. We heard later that the same dog had followed various pilgrims all the way from the very beginning in St Jean Pied De Paul. I couldn’t believe it! He followed us all the way to our Albergue, and spent the evening sitting outside the front door waiting for us, crazy!

Jeff’s boots were in the process of falling apart over the past few days, poor buggar. His feet are massive – size 14, so of course he couldn’t get a new pair anywhere, so all he could do way try and duct tape them and hope for the best! He spent many ‘happy’ ours the night before trying to do a DIY repair…very frustrating for him.

As of today, I was officially less than 100km away from Santiago!
The rules regarding the pilgrimage to Santiago and receiving your Compestela (certificate stating that you have completed the Camino De Santiago) state that you must walk at least 100km – so as a result, the number of pilgrims from this point almost tripled, and I was starting to get really annoyed at the number of what we kindly named ‘day trippers’ – who were mainly older people wearing very touristy type clothes (cotton pedal pushers, sneakers etc), carrying these incredibly small backpacks… whilst we were weathered, dirty, smelly etc..! At this point I had walked well over 600km, with a backpack that weighs approx 10kg, and at the end of the day, I get exactly the same Compestela that they do! Not a very nice frame of mind from a fellow pilgrim, and I should have been (and was…) pleased that these people were giving it a red hot go, but every time I passed them, I got a bit madder!

We stayed with our Spanish student friends once again tonight, and it was becoming clear that this is the sort of school trip I should have had! They were running wild with no rules enforced on them at all! We had walked past some of them during the day, and I almost toppled over when I looked at one of the girls and noticed that she had INCREDIBLE amounts of make up on – blusher you could see from the moon! Made me feel even dirtier and smellier and older!! Maybe no one told her the point of the journey…?