Let’s just call it 20 miles. By the time we walked for dinner and back, it was well over twenty miles, with hills, both ways! Oh, I’m pooped. But we need to start from the beginning. Up and out by 7am and down to the local cafe for Espresso. She just put the croissants, both plain and chocolate in the oven, but we had a full day ahead. So no croissants this morning. Well, not yet.

First things first, I messed up on the mileage calculations. For some reason, today was a 14-15 mile day, not a twenty mile slog. My math must’ve been off a smidge. As George would say, imagine that! Looking at the elevation profile, it didn’t look like much ?!?! But it was.

The walk out of town was pretty mundane. Although for a the little town, it was much bigger than I thought. I found the Town Hall, the Center Square and many more restaurants. We followed a few Polgrims but for whatever reason, there weren’t the gourds of people like the last couple of days. I think the new walkers were nursing their wounds and calling taxis. It happens.

We followed the road for a minute, and then entered the forest. There are tons of Eucalyptus Trees and I think I’ve figured out why they were planted here. They serve as a wind screen. It was howling this morning. The turbines on top of the hills were turning, and there was a cold wind from the north. Lucky for me, the sun was shining and I was planning on warming up from the uphill projectory. Climbing has a way of taking the chill out of one!

We passed a Cafe or two and I finally had to make the command decision and stop for fuel. This nice little place in San Xulian was just the right stop. The gal Shannon who we met last night was eating breakfast there. The Bacon looked like actual bacon, which is saying a lot because bacon in Spain, is not anything like bacon in the US! I need that. I walked up to the counter and ordered bacon and eggs, and George got his fresh squeezed OJ, a Chocolate Croissant with a Banana. We both got what we were hankering for. Oh my gosh, two fried eggs with bright orange yolks and the best bacon, hands down, that I’ve had on trail. I’m not sure what they did with that pig, but man oh man alive, that was scrumptious!

After my yummy breakfast, I was ready to carve out some miles. The terrain was a lot of up with little downs, open spaces with forested areas, covered trails with eucalyptus leaves on the ground and just a beautiful morning.

We saw Mr. Jansport who I found out is Ken, his daughter Elyssa and Cameron. Nice to put a name to this traveling trio. I met a gal and her family from Argentina who are new followers of my blog. That’s always fun. And ran into many of our favorite people on the trail.

The morning was perfect, even though we had some climbing. The trail was perfectly manicured. We did go through a bit of an industrial area with a Junk Yard. That was the first car graveyard we’ve seen. In fact George mentioned that we haven’t seen a single car broken down on the side of the road. I guess that’s a good thing because I also haven’t seen a single tow truck or AAA, except for the Semi-Truck Tow at the crash scene, weekend ago.

We crossed a beautiful bridge over Rio Furelos in the town of Furelos. It was one of the prettiest little towns that I’ve seen in quite sometime. We huffed and puffed and made it to Melide when George started hankering for real food. I had just talked with the 3 Musketeers, don’t know their real names about eating some Octopus. Lo and behold, we arrive in Melide and one of the restaurants are giving samplers out. I try a piece and tell George it tastes like chicken. He thinks he’s biting into a piece of cheese, but we all know it’s octopus! And we grab a table.

Probably the first real restaurants that we sat down inside for lunch. We typically have Cafe-Bar type establishments but not today. I order, you guessed it, Octopus and Pimentos and George has Steak and Fries. We both indulge in Beer. Our friends from Iowa show up and sit with us super good lunch we all had.

Being we are only halfway, we get a move-on. We walk through Melide and manage to make it without getting run over. Lots of traffic in town. We still have another nine miles to go and both George and I are not feeling too motivated.

Lots of ups and downs. It is much like the PUDS (pointless ups and downs) of the Appalachian Trail. we run into the 3 Musketeers again. They are actually slower than us. There’s not many people we pass, but these three are pretty darn slow. After a stop for Mineral Water, Soda and Water without Gas, we make our last and final stop at the Beer Garden. It’s hot and we need some yeast, barley and hops to power us up the final hump. After two large frosty mugs of Cervesa, we finish up our day.

We notice a group of kids with small packs and think they must be walking home from school. Wrongo-Dongo they are a group of 30 High School kids from Madrid, walking the Camino. They started in Sarria and plan to finish the same day as us. Once George told them where we started from, they are quite enamored. Now we are Super Stars in their eyes.

Nearly 5pm and 19.7 miles later, we make it to Arzúa. All I want is a shower, a beer and dinner, in that order. Wish is granted. I had looked at our Wise Pilgrim app and found a hotel that everyone was raving about called 1930 Boutique Hotel. It has a restaurants I’m thinking we should go there for dinner. After our beer, we head over. Adrian, the CEO who can’t be older that 30, explains that the only people who can eat here are guests of the hotel. After he explains that most everything is closed because it’s Monday, he sees my disappointment and escorts us upstairs to his very fine dining establishment.

I am impressed. The waitress comes out and shares the menu with us and we order Tempura Vegetables with Grilled Steak and Potatoes. Then she pours the wine and gives us a shot of Beet Juice with Garlic and Olive Oil. Oh my word, it is so refreshing and we slug that down. Our bread comes with Truffle Butter and then dinner. I have come to the conclusion that Galicia is my most favorite place to dine after leaving France. The food we have had in the past couple of days is Michelin Star worthy.

What a day we had. The scenery was spectacular, the terrain was tough, the mileage too much, yet we have come closer to Santiago now than any day previously. We are less than a marathon away! And we will break that up into two more days. No race now just slow and steady. What an amazing day it has been and the hope for tomorrow!

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Romans 5:3-5