With no alarm, we were delighted to wake later than our now customary 6am, and we had a very slow start at 7:30am.

Everything felt calm and relaxed in Pitar’s home.

Pitar played the bazouki for us over our morning coffee. What an amazing coffee, by the way…made in a moka pot on the stove and served in a humble little pottery cup, and infused with cinnamon.

The bazouki playing was really beautiful…again self-taught…and he said the piece he played was actually an improvisation.

Hamish then whispered to me that it was our niece Esther’s birthday coming up and that maybe something crafted by Pitar might be just the thing? I wasn’t so sure about leather goods for a 10 yr old, but when I went to look, I saw the perfect thing…a small and delicate bracelet, beautifully hand-braided.

Just as we were leaving, Pitar asked if we would like a stamp and I realised that I had forgotten to ask if he might have a pilgrim stamp, like all other regular hostels.

Of course I said yes, but I wasn’t quite prepared for what happened next.

Instead of the usual stamp with ink-pad, he picked up a fountain pen and actually drew a picture in green ink. It was so incredibly beautiful, and the tears started pouring…

A precious gift.

Then we stopped for breakfast with Nele at the same place that we had dinner last night, Casa de Ponte (only 50 m away). The breakfast was an enormous pile of ultra processed bread… with metallic packs of sugary jam, quite in contrast from the wholesome quality of Pitar’s house and from all the food we had been served in Spain until this point.

We were soon joined by Nish (from Bristol), another English girl and a couple of Spaniards.

It was raining already.

We laughed at one point because we all caught a glimpse of the most unhealthy pilgrim passing by the breakfast window, wearing a town coat and backpack, walking super slowly, leaning heavily on her wooden staff and drawing very deeply on a cigarette. A hilarious sight in the rain, perhaps the most unlikely pilgrim to survive the course?

We had a morning of gentle walking in the rain until nearly 2pm, but spirits and energy were high, mainly thanks to finally having had a good night of sleep.

The sun eventually made an appearance around 2pm and we happily stopped at a bar 6k before Melide. Somehow we always manage to meet up with our Italian Andrea once a day. He is very funny, and reminds us of our friend Innes Watson. It was great to see him at this bar.

We also met an Israeli man there called Hod. He is keeping a very interesting diary and is an artist and photographer. His camera is a vintage Polaroid which prints off instant photos, and he adds these into his diary. He is a character and I would like to meet him again and find out more about him.

There was a very stern German lady running the Albergue Alfonso 2 in Melide. She runs a very tight ship, which is comfortable and clean. House rules are clearly adhered to and woe betide you if you put a foot wrong. Even Nele from Germany, who is a self-confessed straight talker, was taken aback at the stern directness.

We successfully did a washing of all our gear, as well as Nele’s, in the washing machine and hung it all out to dry in the perfect conditions of sunshine and wind.

A nice group of Portuguese pilgrims offered us two handfuls of clothes pegs, as we were running very low.

While this was drying we went in search of dinner.

Checking the Tripadvisor for restaurants, we found that the top two were pulperias, so we went to check them both out.

When we came to the first one, my heart had a sudden flutter and chill…was this the same as the one i had been on a mission to find those 11 years ago, after falling into a public sewer due to a dodgy manhole cover?

But I couldn’t understand it…this was surely the wrong town?!! We hadn’t even reached the village of Arzúa where I had had my terrible sewer misfortune. This was surely too early?! But it did have the same name…Pulperia Esequiel?

Hamish definitely sensed my distress and steered me out to the other pulperia on the list…to Pulperia a Ganacha. We ordered up a feast there and then we talked about my trauma of 11 years ago when I had fallen into the sewer. It was after that epic clean up, that I had headed for that pulperia, which is where I had sought salvation and drowned my distress.

After dinner we also realised that with only two nights left before our arrival into Santiago, we could no longer be spontaneous about our accommodation, as the Camino was now effectively like a highway of pilgrims all needing accommodation and there were limited beds.

As much as we wanted to arrive at the same time as our Italian pilgrim family, we had made a conscious decision to be kind to my knee and also to go gently with ourselves so that we could arrive in good condition to Santiago. Therefore we would end up arriving a day later.

We spent a good hour at the pulperia nursing wines and desserts, making phone calls to albergues. We managed to secure beds in Arzúa but alas none were available to book in A Pedrouzo. However there were 150 unreservable beds in the town, so we decided that we would just have to leave early that day to secure our beds in person.

Total distance 22.62k

Total ascent 443m

Total descent 533m