Out-walking the Mud!

Hiking Day 31 May 10

Fonsagrada to O Cadavo

Miles 15.6

Total miles 434.7

Ascent. 1857’

Descent. 2741’

We start out walking by 8:15 as the days are getting hotter and the walk today is another long one. The paths today will be 80% on unpaved paths, which will be the highest unpaved path percentage of the entire trip. Which will be great as my feet are beginning to protest the long miles of hiking, day after day.

Before long we are climbing up, then long descents begin as well. This is our last day in the higher mountains. And hopefully the last day with mud. We are slowly out walking the mud as the rains have stopped and the paths are drying up, all of which makes for more pleasurable hiking! Starting tomorrow we leave the mountains and begin the much less severe ups and downs leading to our goal—Santiago! After today’s hike we will be only 130 km from Santiago, which is just over 80 miles.

A few miles into the day, we stop briefly at a small chapel where we catch up with Patrick (a 76 year old hiker from Scotland) as well as Willy and his son Daniel who are oyster farmers from Ireland. All are pilgrims that we have met in the last few days.

Bill Terry Patrick Daniel Willy

Near the chapel we look at the adjacent pasture which contains remains of an ancient dolmen and a modern wind turbine for solar. A unique mix of the ancient and the new. A dolmen is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, consisting of two or more vertical megaliths supporting a large horizontal capstone. They date from the early Neolithic (4000-3000 BC).

Remains of a dolmen in the foreground.

We stop at a great pilgrim bar at the bottom of a very long descent and enjoy coffee and tea! Once we depart, we begin a section of very long and very steep climbs. As we walk, we notice the dramatic change in roofing materials since we started this adventure. All along the Camino del Norte as we walked along the northern coast of Spain, the overwhelming roofing material of choice was red roof tiles. This has slowly changed as we head south from the coastal areas. Now that we are in Galicia, the predominant roofing material is slate roofing. Below are some examples are the roofs we are now seeing.

We finish our day at almost 16 miles and do one of our fastest paces of the trip as our average moving speed is 3.1 miles per hour, making for a short 6 hour hiking day. We enjoy beers in frosted glasses after we arrive. Tomorrow is a long…20 mile?…walk into the large city of Lugo, at 100,000 people.

We have arranged an early breakfast for the morning as the miles will be long and the afternoon temperatures near 80 degrees.

Just 6 more days of walking to reach Santiago and our adventure draws to a close!