emilyonearth

It was a foggy start today, and the track was much busier than we have become accustomed to. I think within the first hour of walking we saw more people than we would normally see all day long. More than five times more people start in Sarria than in any of the other popular starting points, as it’s situated 113km from Santiago, and thus is just past the minimum distance that you need to walk to receive a Compostela and, if you’re Catholic, Plenary Indulgence. It’s a common starting place for Spanish people, school groups, and people who aren’t interested in an 800km walk across the country, I guess.

In an attempt to avoid these crowds, we’ve just walked a short day today, about 14km, so that we’re not staying at one of the “standard” end-of-stage towns. That way, we can walk regular or slightly longer than normal distances for the next few days and stay at what would be the mid-point of a regular day’s walk, hopefully avoiding the crowds a bit. We had planned of staying at a town called Ferreiros, but that didn’t work out. On the app it said that neither albergue in Ferreiros accepted reservations, but we got there just before opening time and they said they were booked out! I get back on the app and called ahead to a place just a kilometre down the road in the next town, A Pena, and they said they still had space, so that’s where we headed. It turns out they were only partially telling the truth – their shared bunk room was actually booked out, but they’ve put us in a private room for the same price as the bunk room! It’s really very kind of them. They seem lovely people, and the albergue is nice too – currently we’re sitting out in their garden having just had a beer for lunch! It’s also right on the 100km mark.

We’ve signed up for the shared dinner tonight, which is going to be lentils as a starter and chicken for a main. Normally there are mushrooms in the chicken dish, but they are very kindly making us a version without them! Terrible, picky people we are.