Day 34 - Negreira to Olveiroa

October 14, 2021

I thought today’s section was going to be tough. It was 34km, but also my guide book led me to believe it was going to be very hilly, even worse than yesterday. As it turned out it wasn’t to bad, but I was a little tired when I arrived at Olveiroa.

Last night, I had to go out of the albergue for my meal as for some reason (I think I heard ‘covid’ mentioned), and they were not doing meals, as I had thought. I asked advice on where to go from the guy on reception, and he just said, go to the bar in town that their albergue runs. I thought I would take that advice with a pinch of salt and had a look around. In the end I went to Hotel Millan that had advertised on big posters on the trail as we came into town. I went into the restaurant, as soon as they were open, at 7:30. It was a bit odd, as most of the lights were still off by then. I obviously attracted the attention of the waitress, as she put the lights on and showed me to my table – I had a choice of two! That evening I was the only person eating in the restaurant, but on the up side, I didn’t have to wait long between the courses!

I had another gigantic serving dish of Galician vegetable soup, which was lovely, and my main source of vitamins for the week. I then had chicken in garlic with chips which as a bit of a let down to be honest. For dessert, she went through a few options and I settled on ‘pudding’ as I thought it was a bit of a lottery and I didn’t have any idea what I was going to get. When I had eaten it, I still didn’t know what it was either. It was cold and a bit like bread pudding in consistency and it had walnuts in too, which were nice.

Before I went to bed that night, I made sure my bags were packed for an early get away in the morning and so I didn’t make too much noise.

I walked out of town and about an hour later, I met Fernando who lives near Valencia in southern Spain. He was attempting to finish off a section of the Camino Finisterre and had managed to get 4 days off work to do it. It was still very dark at this stage and I saw that Fernando was using his phone for a torch. He told me that his head torch had broken the day before. After a bit of chit-chat, I had said cheerio and started to leave him behind. But then I thought, I can’t leave him, his battery might run out and he would be lost. So, I went back to him and raised my concerns, but he assured me it would be ok and it would be daylight in 30 or 40 minutes.

I pressed on across the gravely track and then I saw something on the ground, shining back at me. I thought, it can’t be another NightJar, can it? (from a web search... a nocturnal insectivorous bird with grey-brown camouflaged plumage, large eyes and gape, and a distinctive call). Somewhere back in my earlier blogs, I was fortunate enough to see a few Nightjars early one morning. Again, it stayed on the ground until I got quite close to it and then it flew off but kept looking back and me until it was lost in the dark.

About this time, Fernando had caught me up again and we carried on walking and chatting. When we got to a turn off, I could see him looking at his phone, so assumed he was keeping an eye on the route. A little while later, I just checked that we were on the route and found that we were about ½ mile off the route. Groan... I hate it when this happens. I discovered that all Fernando had was Google maps and this doesn’t tell you if you are on the route or not. Once when I was walking on the mountains in north Wales in thick fog, I met a group of Israelis doing something (?) up the mountain. They weren’t dressed for the conditions and all they had was google maps. They were arguing with each other about the best way to get down. In the end, I walked them to the start of the track that would lead them back down to their car by Llyn Ogwen. I don’t think they ever realised the danger of the situation they were in.

Using my GPS app, I got us back on the route without a huge delay, but Fernando was not a happy bunny. He said, ‘I have only walked 7km in two hours!’ I spent some time wondering if 7km over two hours was that bad, especially as we had been going up hill for a lot of the journey. I didn’t say anything but wondered if he was having a dig at me?

Later on, I suggested that we take a particular route based on what my app was showing me. He said no, it wasn’t the proper route so he would go the ‘correct route’. Again I was left wondering is he was either a stickler for staying on the route, or doesn’t he trust my map reading ability? I said goodbye to him and later he caught me up as I was sitting down eating a sandwich. The first thing he said was ‘are we on the right route?’ I was going to jest with him but thought better of it and assured him that we were.