Today Friday, we decided to go for it! Alarm clock at 5:15am and on the road at 6:00am! Beautiful calm chilly morning. Headlamps on because it was still dark and we had to negotiate roads! Once again we climbed and climbed and climbed from 485m to almost 1000m, to the village of Alberguería, where we arrived three hours later and had our first coffee of the day. There is nothing very remarkable about this village save that there is a bar where pilgrims note on a "Vieira", a clam shell, their name and the date they passed through. There are hundreds if not thousand of these shells lining all the walls and ceilings. We had been there before in June 2010 so we searched for ours. It took us 20 minutes to find! By sheer coincidence we found another shell signed by Gibraltarians Freddie and Christine Vasquez, also dated June 2010. I've included a photo of their shell so if anyone has them as friends on Facebook I would be grateful if you can share this post with them. We have left another shell marking our current walk from Alicante to Finisterre and Muxia.
Suitably refreshed, we left Alberguería first on a minor road and then on a path cross-country with the usual up and down stoney paths, goat tracks and practically every hideous form of torture they could conceive! We arrived in Vilar dos Barrios a couple of hours later. Here we had to decide whether to stay the night or carry on another three and a half hours. We opted for the latter and arrived in Xunqueira de Ambiance, completely exhausted but delighted to have accomplished a 22 mile trek!
Better news for tomorrow is that we have a shorter day (only 23 Kms) to Ourense, where we will stay at the local Albergue and then transfer to a 5 star hotel on Sunday to celebrate my 70th birthday and a well deserved rest. Something is going on in Ourense over the weekend and there were no suitable hotel rooms available for Saturday night.
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