La Faba to Triacastela, 26km

Despite the somewhat chilly sleeping quarters (all part of the rustic charm?) I woke up on a bit of a high this morning, eager to tackle the rest of this climb and soak up a few more mountain views. 

So, off I powered up the trail, hitting the first cafe stop in record time and feeling very pleased with myself for having knocked over the 5km climb to O’Cebreiro without a drama. After the usual breakfast special, I decided to celebrate with a marathon phone call to Australia (Happy Birthday Molly!) and was quite happily kicking back for a bit when a German guy I have seen off and on the past few days stopped for a chat and we worked out this wasn’t actually O’Cebreiro and I still more than half the climb ahead. 

Way to burst a bubble … and a cloud for that matter. Two minutes into my walk the heavens opened and my poncho was put to its toughest test yet. I actually didn’t mind walking in the rain as long as the important parts stay dry (not sure what constitutes important, but arms and legs apparently don’t count)  The views were still lovely and the rain dripping off the trees made for a very relaxed few hours of solitude. 

Still, when I hit another cafe early afternoon, I was on the verge of being over it and was very happy to take a break in front of their open fire while the contents of my pockets (including my passport and my pilgrim passport – eek!) dried out and my fingers got their feeling back.  

I did have to venture back out into the rain at some point, and raced through the complicated process of suiting up with jacket, rain jacket, poncho, backpack and backpack rain cover.  Despite the rain clearing up an hour or so later, I couldn’t muster the energy to reverse this process and continued on into Triacastela in full wet weather regalia, belting out the soundtrack to The Sound of Music as I went (reminiscing about the early days of this walk when I actually had a few cool songs in my head.) the afternoon was spent losing the 600m in altitude I gained yesterday and this morning, and have to say the legs are definitely feeling it this evening. 

But the rain stayed away and I was starting to dry out, so all was good … until I stopped at the shop at the edge of town and realised my backpack and its entire contents were soaked through. After a few minutes of cursing the manufacturers for their inept rain guard, I soon worked out that in my haste to get away from my lunchtime stop, I had filled up my water bladder but not actually closed it properly. I may as well have just opened the pack and poured a litre and a half of water in there. Talk about rookie error. 

 As for the experts, have had a few updates today.  Daphne and a much-improved Gonzalo had just passed Palas de Rei and are planning on hitting Santiago on Friday, while Silvana seems to be smashing out 35km days and is in Portomarin, so only a day behind them. Have to say it grates a little to still be a few days behind them all, but my feet are making it very clear when I have reached my daily limit, so no superhuman catchup days likely to happen in the foreseeable future. Besides, I am keen to savour it as much of this time as I can.  

While talking to the family this morning, I was standing in front of a sign that said 154km to Santiago.  Have had my hopes raised and dashed several times over the last few weeks by this kind of thing, so wasn’t giving it much credence, but when I entered the province of Galicia (or country if you take the Galician view) and watched the official waymarkers count down to what is now 130km, I had to start getting my head around the fact that I am now officially on the home stretch.  Think I might be confused, happy and sad about that in equal measures.