I slept so soundly, it was a pilgrim who woke me but it was late, 7am. I got up and started to go about my morning duties. Bruno and I were the last in the albergue. I think because we are so close to the end the tiredness has kicked in, (either that or we have a routine of lying in knowing that 90% of the people who left early will be overtaken by lunch)?!
By the time we leave it’s 8am, pilgrims who started at the village before Portomarín are turning up. We follow the arrows down to the river and across the footbridge. There are so many people, despite the hill climb we pass most of them. We cross railway tracks and small streams, we pass through small villages, stopping at the odd cafe, cross or church. Every time we stop a few people pass by that we’ve already overtaken, when we hit the road again, it’s not long until we pass them again.
We arrive into Palas de Rei just after 2pm, we pick an albergue, it’s not the best but it’ll do.
After the usual chores we grab some bits from the supermarket and sit outside a closed cafe to eat. A voice calls from behind us… It’s Nikki aka Earth Mother of the Camino, how she got that name I’ll never know. We persuade her to stay in what is a fairly boring town, the mention of wine is all that was needed to twist her arm, then Michael and Katja turn up. We go for a drink and arrange to meet later on at 7.15pm for dinner. In the meantime it’s siesta time. During my siesta a call comes through from Jamie back at home. I was half asleep but I hope I was coherent…?! It was good to hear from him and he told me his design company ‘Hello Communications’ was going to donate to my UNICEF fund, which I just need to add is now over £5000.00 thank you so much to my family and friends for being so so generous!
Anyhow, after the phone call I fell asleep again and so we were nearly half an hour late for dinner. Ooops. After dinner we chatted some more before calling it a night.