We left as one of the earliest pilgrims this morning at 7:20, willing to leave the one steep mountain behind us before breakfast. My throat ache from yesterday had turned into a cold so it took a little more efford for me than normally but I did okay. After a short while, Richard from the Netherlands caught up with us and we walked together for a while, climbing the first 300 meters.
Only a short while after reaching the top and starting to descend, the perfect breakfast place appeared in front of us in a small village. An Argentinian young family that had walked the Camino 5 years ago and decided to stay there and buy a house, had set up a little resting place with coffee, tee, cake and fruit under their balcony. We enjoyed a nice breakfast, a little chat and a dry composting bathroom with a cute cat included.
Afterwards, we descended for a few more km until we had to climb the next mountain which was smaller. Afterwards, the path went on going nicely up and down through forests, villages and over some fields. It was not incredibly sunny but still super hot – too hot for me at least.
Our complaining started early today, after only about 11 km. Our strength seemed to be a little worn out by so many days of walking. Although I’m sure I felt worse than Johanna because of my cold, it didn’t take a great efford to convince her to make a break day tomorrow. We texted the guys and agreed on staying one extra night at today’s stage destination.After deciding that, the few kilometers that were left to get there, were even harder. Exhausted, we were looking for a place to have lunch in the shadow and – magically – a picnic place came in sight in that precise moment and in the middle of nowhere. When we got closer, however, we saw this:
Sitting on the grass next to cold water seemed pretty attractive nevertheless and we settled down to eat and relax our feet and legs.
What was left of the 22 km of today was a piece of only 4.5 km through nice forests. The 800 m of elevation were also almost behind us and we made it to Salas at 15:15.
Mitch and Ben were already waiting for us at the albergue and we settled down in a more relaxed manner than normally. Knowing we can sleep tomorrow and properly wash all our stuff felt very good. Everything had been starting to feel a little gross by now. Our clothes have been half-heartedly hand-washed with shampoo, dish detergent and other stuff for two weeks now, some of them haven’t been washed at all.We didn’t even have the energy to buy and cook and just went out to grab something to eat at a place in town.We went to the bar of the family of our hospitaleras just one block down and although the vibes were really “villagy”, the food was awesome and the service was nice and they had paper table cloth so we could play a drawing game.
Of course, there was a Post-Dinner street-light show included in the night.
As we are not leaving tomorrow and there are only 7 people in the albergue, I could use two beds and the floor to leave all my stuff laying around in a completely mess and built myself a little house out of spare blankets tonight, hoping to get a good night’s rest and get better.
