Days 27, 28, and 29 La Faba to Palas de Rei

CDay 27 La Faba to Triacastela

Leaving La Faba we continued uphill, but this time our legs told us that enough's enough. It is a healthy feeling though to start the day like this. Our hearts pound and we can feel the pulse in our ears drumming a the beat like a marching cadence. 

Some people do the Camino in style. This group of 7 horsemen are riding the Camino. Their horses and tack are beautiful. Leathe saddle bags and cool cowboy outfits. Arwyn and I have pretty much decided to come home and by horses and ride around causing mischief. For four days now we have kept up witness horses. They are faster but we walk longer. 

After a long day it felt like I had some type of tendon problem or maybe shin splint. We iced it down and in the morning we wrapped my leg in toilet paper and then made a compression bandage with duct tape. It worked like a charm. Other than that I stubbed my toe pretty bad which isn't comfy for long distance walking and it is still questionable if I will get to keep my big toenail as it was bruised from hitting the front of my shoe. 

Day 28 Triacastela to Mercadoiro

The sunrises are one of our favorite things on this trip. We are always walking before it is up so we never miss them. I can tell you for sure that we simply cannot capture the beauty in a photo. We continued down from the mountains we worked so hard to traverse and passed through the cloud layer from sunny day to gloomy fog. At a coffee stop at a farmhouse that was converted to a bar I found some little buddies. 

We are now walking through more of a hill country and the weather is sunny and in the mid 70's. Today was our longest walk at about 26 miles. We walked from 7 am to 6:30 pm. We really enjoyed the afternoon walking. Most everyone is off the road and drinking wine by 2 pm so we are by ourselves durin these afternoons. By far, the best part of our day is when we came across an old farmer on a vintage John Deere tractor who was driving along with his dog chasing along. He stopped and waved us over. The Spanish dialect in Galecia seems closer to Portuguese so I couldn't understand too much of what he said but he gave Arwyn and I each a walnut with a toothless grin and said they were from his family. He was so happy to see us and reallly embraced us with a long double handed hand shake. We stopped in a renovated farmhouse and enjoyed dinner in the ressurant and a 2 euro bottle of wine.  It was a very successful day. 

Day 28 Mercadoiro to Palas de Rei

Today was a long one again. Following the 26 mile day yesterday we did about 20 today. It felt like a pretty uneventful day. 

One thing that is very differen is that there are many new people on the road. There is a type of certificate of completion issued which is important to many people but especially the spaniards. It is a great source of pride to have hiked their country's Camino. Either way, the certificate is called a compostela and to get one you have to walk at least 100 km into Santiago. We are now 70 out so we are now surrounded by those people doing the last section. To each his own I say, but the problem is that we are now competing for beds with these people and the are fresh and fast and don't have a month's worth of stuff with them. I guess we feel like we are the old hands now.