Month: March 2022

Our friend Henry asked in a comment yesterday: “Out of curiosity, how many hours do you actually walk? I imagine that the gung-ho younger walkers cover 5.8 miles in about 2 hours or a little more, though probably all they see are their feet. Do you make it a four hour stroll + coffee stops and a stop for lunch, or is your late lunch stop the end of your walking day?”

Well, Charlie keeps a track of each day’s walking using an app called Wikiloc. So, Henry, it’s easy to answer your question with those tracks. Here are stats for our last 3 days of walking.

Thursday, March 24: 6.1 miles, 4 hours and 48 minutes total, 2 hours and 29 minutes moving time.

Wednesday, March 23: 5.8 miles, 3 hours and 40 minutes total, 2 hours and 6 minutes moving time.

Tuesday, March 22: 7.1 miles, 4 hours and 20 minutes total, 2 hours and 37 minutes moving time.

We do stop at least once for breakfast and again for coffee if we find an open bar (doesn’t always happen). So, you can see, it’s pretty leisurely. We’ve been arriving to our day’s destination with plenty of time to check into our night’s lodging, rest a little, and then go out for lunch. Our favorite time for lunch is around 3 or 3:30 and then we are pretty much done with eating for the day. (Yesterday was an exception when we had a group dinner with two other pilgrims at the albergue.)

Those actual walking times are Charlie’s. Sometimes he gets a little ahead of me and waits for me to catch up and the app stops counting that moving time. So, my moving time is longer than Charlie’s.

Charlie is a stronger/faster walker than I am. When we were planning our first Camino, we both assumed he’d get way ahead of me and then we’d join up at some point. But it’s turned out that we stay together pretty much all the time because we like to walk together and see things together and talk about things. Charlie’s been very patient with me over the years.

Also, Charlie carries more than 2/3 of our weight so that slows him down a little and allows me to keep up better.

Each region handles the Camino differently. This is an example of the concrete posts that Galicia uses. You see one at any place where there is some question about which way to go and at least every half mile.

The distance is down to a yard. I have no reason to doubt it since civilian GPS has that accuracy but I wonder about the logistics of installing them. You would need to take the reading right by the post and it must go a foot or more down into the soil. The metal plaque is securely installed in the cement. This is necessary because people steal them for souvenirs. We walked the Portuguese Camino in 2017 and all the distance plaques in the last 100 km had been stolen. They were not as securely attached as these are, they must have changed their policy to prevent thefts.

I also wonder about the need for one yard accuracy to a city of 100,000 people that probably covers 3-4 square miles but what the heck, why not?

Galicia is also known for its hórreos. We have talked about these in other camino blogs. They are used for drying crops, such as corn, in rainy Galicia. They are build on stilts with little protrusions at the top of each leg to prevent mice, etc. from getting in and eating the corn. We love them and enjoy seeing them. Some are square like this one, some are rectangular, it depends on the local customs. It is unusual for one to have a thatched roof like this one. This one might have been decorative from the beginning and never really used.

I love these, can’t stop, won’t stop.

It was a cold and windy walk today. I’m not sure why, but we didn’t mind too much. Uh, well, maybe because we only walked 5.8 miles. We heard from our friend Henry and my mom Berniece that it snowed 2 inches in Albuquerque last night!! So warmer here than there. If I had been home I would have been too wimpy to go out in the cold, even for my usual 2 mile walk. That’s one thing I love about the Camino.

We have another lovely place to stay this afternoon and tonight. A private room in an albergue. Casa Nuñez (aka A Reboleira) in Fonfría. We will have a group meal tonight. There are only 2 others staying here that we know about so far. Most people at this point carry on walking to Triacastela where we will walk to tomorrow.

This room is typical in that it is costing us 40 euros, or 20 euros each. People here pay 12 euros each for the dormitory in the albergue where a number of people share a room with bunk beds. These private rooms are quite a deal. They also include a private bathroom.

Galicia is the northwest region in Spain, just above Portugal. We are now walking in Galicia. We had mentioned before that if you contract covid in Galicia, all your medical bills will be covered. I found this brochure (photo below) in today’s Albergue that says they will also cover expenses for repatriation and for a stay required by a quarantine! We have to get a covid test before returning to the US. We are thinking we should get one before we leave Galicia because if it should turn out to be positive, this is THE place to be.

There are other reasons to come here. It is a beautiful place to visit. It’s green and lush. Not what you probably think of when you think of Spain. It’s been compared to Ireland and it shares Celtic roots with Ireland. (Bagpipes are not uncommon.) (Charlie says they are all too common in Santiago.) Galicia’s northern and western border is the Atlantic Ocean. Innumerable beaches and gorgeous shore line. Wonderful cities and towns.

We walked into a tiny town this morning, hoping the one bar would be open for breakfast, and heard quite loud music. We thought “gosh, is that coming from the bar?” But no, it was some outdoor workers who had brought music with them. I don’t think this man minded that I took a video of him enjoying the music (might take a minute to load, hang in here till you see him really get going dancing, you might have to click start):

https://photos.app.goo.gl/yryBHEpqYKZ17qEo9

Just across the street some other men were laying flat stones to build quite a pretty wall.

Unfortunately, the bar was not open. We kept walking and two miles later found one that was open. Shortly after we got there it filled up with pilgrims! We are starting to see lots of fellow peregrinos.