27 Miles--Never Again

On Tuesday, in order for Ina to make it to Santiago for her Thursday flight, we had to walk what amounted to about 26 or 27 miles. It was hard. Last year, I think, we became better accostomed to the long distances. This year, the trip has been great, but the walking portion, although good, seems to be more of a chore than last year. It was another on again/off again rainy/sunny day. Ina headed out very early before sun-up. I left about an hour later at 7:30 a.m. I walked quickly and without any breaks until lunch time. At Caldas de Reis, just past the halfway point, I walked through town and Ina dashed out of a cafe to alert me that she was there along with Dieter and had stopped for lunch. I'd been surprised that I hadn't caught Ina earlier but she was walking her fastest as well. The sun had come out again but by the time we downed our tortilla de patatas sandwiches and our giant, extra milky--cafe con leches, it had started to rain. We walked a bit together and then continued at our own paces. I felt very tired arriving in Padron. Christian had taken the bus and welcomed Ina who arrived some minutes before me and then greeted me as well. Ina had some blisters and I had one also. After the long, hard day, young Ina (age 24) alerted me that she knew what it was like to be old, like me. We showered and headed out with Christian to have some drinks and eats. Ina and I were both limping a bit (due to blisters--there were no other problems). We had caught up with a "pack" of people at the albergue--I'd guess there were about 15-20 people there which was huge for us as we were accostomed to just our little group. The albergue was a beautiful old building--the kitchen featured a huge stone fireplace. Granite is a common stone in N. Portugal and Spain and it is featured in many of the buildings there. The night's sleep wasn't great due to the blaring synthesized music of the nearby carnival. That, which continued to about 4 a.m., combined with Christian's snoring eclipsed the power of the earplugs which resulted in a not so good night's sleep.