Day 25 – Trabadelo to Fonfria

Up until now, I think I have been very fortunate with the weather on my Camino, with no really wet days. Last night, the owner of the albergue said the forecast for today was for rain all day – how right that was. Now that we are moving into the region of Galicia, the terrain is becoming much hillier and that in itself tends to generate its own micro climate. Often with low cloud and rain.

Today’s walk was quite challenging, with the hardest day of the whole walk and 30km. A first for me, I wore my poncho the whole day, but not something to be proud of. It started off walking in damp mist of low cloud. Later, we had showers and in the early afternoon heavy showers. I was really pleased with poncho as it kept most of me and my back pack dry. My legs didn’t matter but my boots were soaked through.

Yesterday as I was walking with Chris, he gave me his walking poles. I’ve never really got on with poles, but today, they were so effective and really helped to get me up the massive hill. I was really pleased with them.

Once I had passed the summit and formerly into Galicia, I started to catch up with two guys walking together. I tried to work out what was happening. The guy in the front had an umbrella up and a big rucksack. The guy behind had no rucksack but had 2 walking poles and looked like he was very drunk!

It turned out they were Italian friends. The one with the walking sticks was obviously very disabled (cerebral palsy?) and couldn’t talk very well. But as I caught up with him, he wished me a lovely “buen Camino” straight away. I could now see that the guy with the umbrella had 2 rucksacks on, with one over his chest. I was amazed to realise he was walking the Camino carrying 2 rucksacks the whole time! What a huge example of sacrificial friendship. They were lovely to talk to. We had a photo and a laugh together and as I was walking away, the one with the umbrella shouted “God save the queen!”. I had a good laugh at that.

I hadn’t stopped walking all day as there was no where suitable out of the rain. Then, as I came up the rise of the track, there was a church with a building tacked to the side, which was open. I looked inside and saw a young guy eating his lunch on a bench, so I went in and joined him. He was Max, a 25 year old German. He was quite friendly and as I took off the poncho and sat down beside him, he offered to share his lunch with me. I was quite touched at his generosity and as I was quite hungry, took him up on his offer – baguette with cream cheese, a cheese square and some salami, fantastic! I gave him a cake I kept over from breakfast. We had a really good time chatting together. 

As were getting ready to leave, he got out some chocolate with  nuts, which he said was always a prerequisite of hiking. He shared some with me as we moved off. As we walked, I showed him the repairs to my boots and how soaking they were. He said that he some Birkenstock sandals, where the soles were coming off. So, we stopped and I got out the glue I had bought for my boots and we mended his sandals. I had hoped that I might be able to help someone with the glue, so I was very pleased that I had been able to repay his generosity.