Day 37: May 31, 2016

Destination: Ribadiso da Baixo

Distance: 26 km

Time: 7 1/2 hours, 8:45 am to 4:15 pm

Terrain: Relentless up and down rolling hills, nice gravel and dirt trail, a couple of dodgy muddy sections, lovely deciduous trees to shade the path

Weather:  beautiful blue skies, warm, almost too warm

Total distance to date: 688km (+12k taxi, 14k bus, 15k bus, 20k taxi = 751 km)

Although we both had a good sleep, today seemed like a death march most of the day. Our feet and legs were sore from yesterday and we both felt inexplicably tired.  We are happy that it’s our last long day of the Camino. Our next two days are 22 and 20km. Yay!

Our day started with getting locked out of our pension. We had gone down to the bar below for breakfast but when we headed back up to pack, the exterior door had been closed and we didn’t have a key. We tried ringing the bell but there was no answer. Eventually we were able to explain our dilemma to the waitress in the bar and she contacted someone who had a key to let us in.

We were on the road at 8:45 and the sun was shining in a blue sky. It promised to be a beautiful day.  My feet were sore when I first got up with sharp pain at the point where my second toe meets my foot. But once we started walking, it stopped hurting and just felt like I had a cotton ball stuck to be bottom of my foot.

The first two hours went fairly quickly and we stopped for a quick drink. However it didn’t take long for both of us to feel very tired and we walked pretty slowly most of the day.

We had a lot of climbing up and down today and the downs made my foot hurt. Luckily they were never too long so we just slogged it out.

At one point we crossed a stream so I stopped to put my hot throbbing feet into the cold water for a few minutes. It felt wonderful and lasted at least 15-20 minutes after we started walking again.

We ran into Phillipe and Chantal again and then later had a drink with Jason and Tina. Neither of them are staying in the same village as us tonight.

In Melide, the largest town we hit today, we stopped at a supermercado and bought ham and cheese and had a quick snack in a park. Erik has not been eating enough and I think he’s lost too much weight so he’s trying to make sure he gets enough calories in during the day.

We trudged on and on until after 4pm when we finally got to Albergue Los Caminates and checked into our room with a bath (35€).

Erik has a couple of blisters starting so he put some bandiada on them and I got ice for my swollen feet. We had a big beer at the bar across the street and then came back to shower. We also put a load of laundry on – our last for the trip.

Now I am sitting in the sun, on the back patio of our Albergue, while I write my blog. All around me are green fields and trees. It’s very pretty here.

Tomorrow we walk 22km and stay in our last pension. I can’t wait to get to Santiago on Thursday!!!!