Day 31 Palas de Rei to Ribadiso
By: Ken Brown
Published: 9/22/2015
We have walked 31 days to Santiago de Compostela
Today we started early because we had reserved a room at an albergue and we had to get there by 2pm or we lost the reservation. Mary set a blistering pace in the dark morning mist. Sunrise is at 8 am but this morning we had clouds and fog so it was darker than yesterday. The path through the city was okay but then leaving the city it became more difficult.
That is pattern we experienced a number of times. The yellow arrows are easy to find in the city, but we get to our first questionable decision point and we stand around looking for the proper path. Sometimes we back track a little or guess a direction with hopes of finding a marker later on. In the dark all this becomes more difficult. We have learned to look for well worn paths or to look down the street for a familiar official sign.
This morning we picked up a guy from France we have seen for a number of days. He was sitting saying the rosary waiting for help in finding the markers. Then a couple of women from Ireland joined our merry band of adventurers. We all had our lights on in the morning darkness looking for indicators. Once found we would all take off in that direction.
There haven't been many churches opened in Galicia much to our sorrow. But today that all changed. We visited four churches this morning. The highlights include a church made in the 11th century in the Romanesque style. The ceiling was painted in the 12th century and it still looked wonderful. The altar was from the 8th century and a baptismal font came from the 13 th century.
Another church we saw had two frescoes of St James and St Andrew painted in 1617.
We crossed a number of small rivers today. One had a bridge made from huge stones. There was also an old medieval bridge we crossed.
We had a couple of breakfasts or snacks today, keeping the cooking to a minimum so we could keep moving forward to our hostel.
It began to rain around noon. We were prepared and it wasn't a hard rain. Mary purchased a poncho for us that covers the backpack. We put those on which helps tremendously. We found out the last rain that even with the rain coats and backpack covers things still got wet. Today all things are dry.
Did we make it in time for our reservation? Of course. But at what price? Mary's toe is bothering her tonight and my feet hurt more than normal. We have a reservation for tomorrow to but we don't have to walk as far. Hopefully we won't have to push as hard as today.
We are excited as we only have 2 days to go to reach Santiago.