Camino walking day 5

After finishing the blog for day 4 I managed to take some additional photos.

View from our hotel window as the dropping sun hit on a row of buildings across the valley

As the weather promised to be warm, high 20s, we decided to get an early start and were up at 6am, dressed, feet taped and otherwise attended to and booted up for the day by 7 o'clock and dashed down only to find that the dining room was not yet open for breaskfast. Bother! We had a short wait before we were able to get in and tackled breakfast in short order.

We were on our way by 7:50am along with quite a few other pilgrims:

Most of the day's walking was through woodlands, small quiet villages and along streams although stream hardly described the small waterways we encountered.

As we were trundling out of Arzua we came to a stamping point that was operated by three nuns. We had not encountered many members of religious orders during our first four days of walking so this was quite novel.

Conditions early in the day were ideal for walking. It was still cool and much of the route protected us from the sun. We made good time.

The outline for the day had promised fairly level terrain. Well, it was sort of level except for the ups and downs. Supposedly there was only 50m elevation gain and 130m elevation loss for the day. Hah!!! Let's try 521m up and 627m down. This makes a huge difference to the walking ease.

We crisscrossed the N-547 a number of times. Crossing at road level was a bit of a game of picking the breaks in the traffic as cars and trucks flew along at breakneck speed. I much prefered cross underneath the road through an underpass. Unfortuntely they were not always available.

From time to time we came across water troughs. Sometimes the water looked fresh while in others it looked decidedly green. Yesterday we did come across a couple of young men making use of one such facility to wash their clothes.

The type of surface over which we walked continued to vary. Today we had

Cement

Rocfks set in cement

Dirt littered with fallen leaves with the odd protruding tree root

There were some lovely vistas when we were clear of the trees:

Small cafes continued to pepper the trail although a number had obviously closed as the main prilgramage season was over. At one of today's stop paella was an option and this was available from a huge pan. while the place was doing a good trade in paella it really was a little early in the day for lunch.

If you are looking for a place to buy and renovate Spain has many options. Here is todays selection of renovators delight:

This property had a for sale sign. Ivy and other greenary spilled out of the windows and doorways and completely coverered the roof 9which may or may not have still been attached)

One of the cafes we passed had taken advantage of a passing stream to offer patrons the opportunity to soak their feet while having a beer:

The chairs stradle a stream while the umbrella, complete with hanging beer bottles, provided shade

In 1985, when we were in argentina, we saw freeways that had been started and then terminated in mid air. Today we came across a variation on this theme. As we crossed the bridge (pictured below) we noticed that it was one of a series. In all we could see five other similar bridges. Below the bridges was a cutting that appeared to have been prepared for a freeway or other major road. Work on the super road had obviously stopped as weeds were now invading the road bed. A definite statement about the stte of the Spanish economy, I suspect.

Eucalyptus trees are very common in this part of Spain. Today we walked through a forest that could have been Aussie bush.

Tall gum trees and bracken ferns!

Jen and I made good time today and arrived at our destination shortly after lunchtime (our lunchtime ... not the locals!). we were able to get in to our room which was good. This allowed us to attend to our feet, do some washing, do this blog and have a rest.

Tomorrow is our last walking day.

Today we walked 19.13km with an alevation gain of 521m and loss of 627m.

Camino walking 4 days

Our overnight in Melide was punctuated by lots of noise until well into the early hours of the morning. Loud voices was a feature. As the room was not airconditioned we had opened the window to cool it down so we had a choice hot or noise. We choose noise. When you are tired enough noise becomes irrelevant and we both ended up asleep.

When we awoke for the 4th day of our walk all was quiet.

The early morning sky (7ish) as seen from our window

The street (as seen from our window) in the quiet of the morning

The Camino promised a number of streams and the rio iso as well as a number of medieval villages and churches. It did keep up its side of the bargain.

Here are some of teh churches from todays walk:

The church in the main square at Melide

The interior of the Chapel of St Anthony, Melide

Note the crow od people in front of the church (bottom left)

Chapel Magdalena, Arzua

Chapel Sata Maria, Arzua

The earliest of the churches/chapels dated back to the 13th century. Neither of the chapels in Arzua were open which was a pity.

much of the walk today was through farmland. This is diarying copuntry and there were lots of farms with cows. None of the herd were big - a dozen cows appeared to be the maximum. The cows are mostly barned. The lucky ones get to go out into the fields and the fresh air.

This was the biggest herd tthat we saw. Note the bell on the cow nearest the (electric) fence

we came across a couple of chaps taking four cows out. They were about to cross a road. at this stage they were all on leads.

We came across the same group a short time later. They were off their leads withno vehicles to contend with - only pilgrims

This herd consisted of black and white cows ... and there were five all told.

As we walked along we were confronted by a persistantly ringing bell. We finally came across the source which turned out to be a stroppy cow who was constantly shaking her head. I don't think she was happy about wearing the bell.

We have come across quite a few dogs over the past four days. Some were wandering around the towns, villages and hmalets. Others were on leads. Some were on the pilgrimage with their masters. However, dogs following pilgrims is obviously a problem as the following sign attests:

We came across one chap who travels with a donkey. apparently they have done quite a few prilgrimages together. The donkey and his master even rate a stamp for pilgrim passports.

I had better explain about the pilgrim passports. People travelling along the various Camino trails, there are four or five all told that end up in Santiago de Compostela, carry a special passport. At many places along the routes who can get stamps that confirm where you have been. These are important as they establish the pilgrims bona fide to claim a Compostela pilgrim certificate from the Pilgrim Office at the end of your journey provided you have completed a minimum distance. The required distance is different for walkers and those on bikes. Yes, there are oddles of people who do the Camino on bikes.

The surface of the trails vary considerably. Here are some from today.

Jen standing on one of the gravelly surfaces we walked on

Areas paved with rocks were hard on our feet

There were a number of stream and river crossings today. Here is one the had large stepping stones.

The River Iso was more like a creek than a river ... perhaps it does carry a lot more water than this some of the time.

Some of our fellow pilgrims took a paddle in the Rio Iso ... a great way to relieve tired feet.

We arrived in Arzua in time for lunch. Jen and I found a place in a shaded plaza:

We both had paella for lunch as this is not usually included on the Menu of the Day and our dinners since we have started walking have been included in our package and are the menu of the day.

Some of our fellow pilgrims took advantage of the cool, shaded plaza. Note the dog between the two prone bodies.

As we walked around Arzua we noticed that the sides (not the fronts) of many buildings were clad in corrugated iron. We ended up figuring that this was a temporary measure just in case another building springs up and abuts the wall.

There were some delightful vistas today, once the low cloud cleared away althought this also meant that the temperature shot up and walking became a much hotter business.

Todays statistics.






According to our trip notes the distance we were to walk should have been 13kms. This was pretty close to the mark. We did an additional 400m at teh start of the day as we doubled back to the plaza to take photos of the church and chapel.



Supposedly the elevation gain should have been a mere 40m with a loss of 180m. Now, that was a laugh! In all we gained 381m and had a loss of 452m!!!! There was a lot of ups and down.

Camino walking day 3

Day 3 was a shorter day. After two days of 23+ kms our third day was set down as 15km with 100m elevation gain and a loss of 150m.

We got away a bit later than on the two previous days a I had some swimming things to attend to and had a problem with the wifi connection so could not get everything done before having breakfast. It did mean that Jen had a little extra time to put up her feet before tackling the days walk.

By the time we got away the day was warming up and the temperature climbed throughout the day. It felt much hotter than the mid 20s that someone said it was. we were both pleased to see and then arrive at Melide, our overnight stop. The walk had been hot. Shade, where we found it was most welcome and a fickle beeze gratefully accepted even if it blews Jen's hat off.

Today we came across quite a number of small, ancient churches. Here are some of the ones we saw.

Interior of the church shown above

The church also had some surviving frescos

The trail has been wellmarked with a range of markers. Some have been shown in earlier posts. Here are a couple of different ones that we came across today:

Camino marker set into the pavement

A yellow arrow made of shells

Along with cats, dogs, chooks, pigs, cattle (both barned and out in paddocks) we have come across a couple of lizards. The first had a lovely green back and was a mid sized fellow, I didn't get a photo of him (or her!). The second one was being teased by a trio of walkers. He was doing a great job of ïf I don't move you won't know I'm there!) and I did capture him:

Today, as in the past two days we used a number of bridges. Some are quite old. Here is one of the bridged we used tody.

The tracks used by the pilgrims (both walkers and those on bikes) use paths and roadways. The surfaces vary from smooth bitumen to rocky and all shades in between. Some are quite hard on feet while others are more gentle.

The feet of the walkers take a fair amount of punishment. During our lunchI noticed about half of the people were limping or hobbling. Quite a few had their footware off and were tending to their feet.

Jen and I had spent quite a bit of time strapping our feet before seeting our for the days walk and our feet held up pretty well with no new blisters. Yes, we do have some already, unfortunately.

The peak of the season has gone and the number of pilgrims is now relatively small compared to earler part of August. A number of places have already shut their doors for the year. Fortunately there are still quite a few open vying for the passing trade.

Our overnight stop was Melide which turned out to be a reasonable sized town.

Todays stats: Distance: 15.68km; Elevation gain: 493m and loss 633

Camino walking day 2

Fortunately there were no overnight thunder storms. The day began with low cloud blocking out much of the view.

We managed to get away shortly after 8:30 with our first stop being the square in front of the church at Portomarin. There were discovered a heap of places serving food and drink that we did not know about previously. The town was obviously a lot livelier than we had realised (a problem when you arrive in a place tired after a long walk).

Some things that I shold have mentioned from day 1.

Our notes warned us that we would encounter cattle as some of our walking was through farmland. There was very limited numbers of cattle on view anywhere. When some were fortunate enough to be outside, most were barned, they were contained by fences mostly of the electric kind.  we were not warned about the smell emanating from the barns!

Back to day 2.

The day promised a walk of 23km with an elevation gain of 340m and loss of less than 200m. Huh!!! The distance was pretty good but not the elevation gain and loss.

The fortress chuch on teh square in Portomarin was impressive. There are no low windows and what windows there are a small slits. Apparently the church contains some impressive sculpyres but alas it was closed when we were leaving.

The other buildings in the square were impressive, too.

The cloud was hanging low over the landscape as can be seen by the next two photos which was taken as we were leaving Portomarin.

At times during today we walked alongside roads. It is surprsing what seems to grow next to roads. There are the blackberries, of course, and these pop up all over the place. The photo below shows a small part of a fairly big fennel crop. Gosh that plant is difficult to get rid of once it is introduced to an area.

We came across quite a bith of heather growing along banks and tracks.

The surfaces we walked over varied considerably. Here Jennifer is walking up one of the grvally ones.

Once the cloud rose we had some lovely views across the countryside. There is quite a loot of forested areas in the region we were walking through. some contain ancient oak trees. Otheres have been harvested and replanted with pines or eucalyptus trees.

Yesterday and today we kept seeing these type of plants in numerousgardens. Some were a good 1.5m tall. The lowere leaves had been stripped of the plants. In the end I concluded that these were probably kale which was being repeatedly harvested.

Looking out through trees at the landscape is fine but doesn't make for good prhotos. It reminded me of comments by Michael when we had been out hiking where we commented more than once that the view would be great if it wasn't for the trees.

In settlements, and sometimew in the middle of nowhere, there were freestanding crosses such as the one below. each one probably has a story to tell. You are lucky that we did not manage to find out what the stories are.

As we had found on our first day, there were small cafes and bars scattered along the trail. This one wa of particular note as not only did it have a "Welcome" sign out front, it offered a toilet, water and hot drinks with just a dontation for the tea and coffee.

We came across quite a few old churches such as the one below. They have survived as many a village has died around them. The Camino and its pilgrims contribute to these ancient builds and the people who care for them.

 

Some of the days walking took us through shaded tracks. As the day warmed up the shade was most welcome.

Our target for the day was Palas De Rei and the sign at the entrance to the town was a welcome sight.

We were pleased to find the hotel where we were staying on the outskirts of the town.

After a shower and a cool drink we felt ready to consider another day of walking.

Distance for the day turned out to be around 24km. This is not accurate as I managed to miss resuming Runtastic following our last refreshment stop.

Elevation gain: 744m

Elevation loss: 541m (some loss was lost when I failed to resume runtastic).

Conclusion: expect much more elevation gain and loss than stated.