WHEN WALKING

Home to Santiago – Day 73

Mondoñedo to Vilalba: 34km

In the morning, I sit in my chosen breakfast place on the square, as the early morning workers come and take their coffees at the other tables. I receive a message from Bernard asking me to wait, nd so it’s nearly nine before I start off on my long, long day.

By then, I’ve had a chance to circle the cathedral and to chat with the regularly recurring Australian, James (after three weeks I finally ask him to remind me of his name). James did arrive in time to see the cathedral yesterday, so I get to have a tour of the inside through his photographs. It was unmissable, he says.

Shortly after, Bernard, Serge, Dutch Betty and Texan Adam appear, ready for the ascent beside the mountain. It’s strange walking in a group. For the first few hours, we bunch up together, changing partners as we speed up or slow down. I spend more time chatting to Serge this time, which is nice. He’s a very pleasant companion, and happily lets me bully him into practising some Hungarian. Everyone has picked up igen, and even better, igenigenigenigenigen, from the evening, with Márkus in the Vilela albergue.

Halfway up, we stop to ask a local where the nearest café is. I think I am the closest to understanding his reply. “It’s the place where all the cars are”, is what I understand. I am surprised that this area should be so remote that he should refer to the next town this way.

But at the top of the hill, I finally managed to work out the man is not a relic of a bygone age, but was just trying to explain the spanish for a service station to me. And what a café there is there, “The King of Cakes”. A huge screen shows the founder photographed with countless Spanish celebrities. Julio Iglesias among them. I am duly impressed.

We sit outside, and this is where I give another goodbye hug to Betty. I then go back and give another one to Adam, because, although I barely know him, I feel mean to have left him out. I am a serial hugger now. When shortly afterwards I see them walking behind , I hasten my step, so a third emotional goodbye is not called for.

Entering the first town on the other side of the hill, I stop when I see an open pharmacist and decide to transform my walk in a way which is momentous to me and almost certainly of no interest to anyone else. I bid Bernard and Serge goodbye and wait my turn to ask for insole advice. It takes a while, but here I am now, with the insoles replaced in my shoes, and my feet feeling two months younger.

As I walk with a lively step through Abadín before embarking on the big second-half part of the day, a man waves at me and tells me to come and join him and his . As always, I do as I am asked.

“Come and have a drink with us,” he says, and I’m about to do so, and tell them I shouldn’t really, as I’m on my way to Vilalba, which is several hours .

The German looks shocked. “You’re walking to Vilalba today? Then you can’t drink with us.” Half relieved, half disappointed, I agree. I go to a supermarket, from which I emerge a few minutes later, reassuring and waving, sweets and bottled drinks, at my fellow pilgrims. I get a thumbs up, a Buen Camino, and a shout from the son.

“See you in Santiago!”

I hope I do. I really regret not spending more than a minute with this lovely pair.

So I’m on my own for a bit, eating large quantities of sugar, having thoughts about lone trees, singing songs, which are pretty much one step, two step, and having an excellent sugar-high post-prandial walk.

After a reasonable interval, I get the call from Bernardo, who has crossed the motorway with Serge and seen a sign for a café just off route. I agree to meet them there.

When I arrive, the locals sitting outside tell me the French café is indoors. A local who lived many years in Normandy is very much enjoying practising his French, and the locals outside are ridiculing him for doing so, but it’s a good atmosphere, all in all. When Bernard suggests jokingly to the boy at the bar that if he has a car, he could give a lift, without hesitation the boy says, “Yes, of course,” but we don’t take him up on it.

Bernard is, however, very tired at this point. He’s a relaxed pilgrim, and a double stage is not his idea of fun.

We carry on through beautiful, no longer mountainous Galician countryside. I think we’re on the plateau now, so we won’t have the gradients, even if we do have to deal with the mountain weather. The way goes over Galician stone bridges, past beautiful Galician stone walls, and whenever it turns down a new , there’s always a little patch of Galician stone cobbles to remind you not to miss the path. It’s all about stone and moss in Galicia, or mousse, apparently, as it’s called in French.

Five kilometres before our destination, we stop and Bernard explains that the pace is not too good for him. And I think we slow down a little. I’m happy to go at any pace, usually, but when the end is in sight, I find it quite hard to put on the brakes.

And eventually we arrive at an out-of-town, (good for shortening the distance, bad for dinner options) albergue. It’s another beautiful, totally modern, almost completely empty municipal place. As always in Galician municipal albergues, it has a beautiful new kitchen, and not a utensil in sight. Serge continues. He has bookings. Bernard, with no booking, has to rough it with me.

And in the albergue tonight, again, not a single familiar face. At this stage there are many people who are just walking this section, and the few pilgrims remaining, who’ve been with me since the start, are spread out now with their different planned arrival dates in Santiago.

Tonight we have Marta from Pamplona, much to Bernard’s excitement, as Pamplona is twinned with his hometown of Bayonne and he was at San Fermín earlier this year.

“Did you jump up and down in the square with all the others?” I ask Marta.

“Yes,” she says. “Every year.”

“Weren’t you scared?” I say.

“Yes,” she says. “Every year.”

I pop out to the small roadside bar next door to grab a for the evening. A very smiley man and woman greet me from a table outside, but they’re so well dressed I don’t recognise them as pilgrims.

I explain this apologetically to Laura, from Brazil, when I meet her in the bathrooms later. I point at her clothes and then at mine.

“Oh yes,” she says, “but these are my evening clothes.”

“Yes,” I say, “and these are mine.”

She laughs and says something about them looking very comfortable. She then tells me tomorrow is her last day, as her walk is only from near Avilés to the next big town.

I stop myself from jokinging, “Oh, then it was a waste of time getting to know you,” and instead come out with, “Well, I hope we meet each other on the walk tomorrow.”

I am learning that being too British doesn’t always pay off.

Big hugs x