The last two days have been challenging but we have made good progress. Yesterday we left Lugo early without breakfast and walked through the rain for a couple of hours before stopping at a cafe for a snack. After that we decided to take a 3 km sidetrack to see a eighth century church that was built over a Roman temple that had some third century paintings preserved. Unfortunately the church was closed and our sidetrack all for nothing. It ended up making our walk over 30 kms long.
The albergue we stayed in last night was excellent and we had a communal dinner of mixed salad and a huge pan (about 2 feet across!) of paella. After supper I did cowboy poetry for our Camino “family”, thr group of people we have been travelling with since Oviedo. After today, some will be heading off the Camino and we wont see them until we connect in Santiago.
This was our last day before the Camino Primitivo joins the Camino Frances two days from Santiago. After another morning in the rain we hit Melide round noon, where we are joined by many more pilgrims and the way becomes crowded. Many of the new pilgrims are just walking the last 100 kms to Santigo, as that is all it takes to get a “Compostella” certificate. A lot of them do not even carry their own bags but send them ahead by courier. This is a little hard to swallow but we have to remind ourselves of the Camino wisdom, “Everyone has to walk their own Camino.” It is not for us to judge.
There are various Camino wisdom sayings that easily translate into the life journey wisdom. One I arrived at recently was “Never pre-judge people until you get to know them.” A fellow Camino pilgrim told me how he had passed another pilgrim and greeted him only to receive a cold stare. Later he saw him in an albergue and the same thing happened. He thought, “What a rude man!” until he was told that the other pilgrim is deaf.
TECHNICAL UPDATE: Yesterday my email reappeared miraculously. I think it had everything to do with Dave’s wife, Phyllis, who used my cell phone to go in and change my Microsoft account. Anyway, if you need to contact me, my email is