Where oh where did we wander today?

That's what it's like. You sit at the end of the day and you try to remember where the heck you started it. Oh!! Triacastela!! Three Castles in Spanish, none of which exist today. Hey, it mattered not to the townsfolk who packed the local bar for the world cup semi-final, Spain v. Germany. What a match!! Germany totally dominated the first half. Faces were grim. The second half was an entirely different story; Germany never showed up. Spain was brilliant. Puyol's header into the back of the net set off pandemonium. Spain is nothing if not wild about their football. The two German pilgrims sat quietly, turning their beer mugs. This was painful for them. Oh well, we're not in Germany are we?! And what's good for the Spanish is certainly good for me!!

We were up late (for a pilgrim) making our way to bed by 10:45p. The alarm went off at 5:30am. We didn't even hear our French friends Sylvan and Sabine get up and go at 5:00. They were going to walk 32K in order to stay in a small, quaint, cozy albergue. They needed to beat the heat. We did too but we were only walking 23K.

We walked out into the night (it's still dark here til 6:45 am) and into a thunderstorm. Haven't seen rain since June 18th. Where was that dang poncho?!!! The storm was short-lived and we walked under the clouds that we viewed from the top of O'Cebreiro the morning before.

We stopped for a quiet cafe con leche in Samos, the site of one of the oldest monasteries in the western world. It was eerily quiet. We were to learn later that the thunderstorm that we walked out into that morning was the tail end of a parade of heavy downpours. The monastery, and the pilgrims' quarters were flooded that night. Apparently there was a great commotion and rush for backpacks and shoes to save them from the rushing waters. No casualties, TG. :) Still, I can't even imagine having the entire contents of my pack soaking wet.

It was not such a bad walk at all. Lovely in fact. The sun finally broke through the clouds around 12:30p. A blessing for peregrinos. We were to meet Marilyn Mase (Mia's mum) in Sarria around 1:00pm. She had spent the night in Santiago with Margie, who was making her way home to Boston. We walked through farmlands and forests; old milltowns and barnyards. We saw few people besides other pilgrims once in awhile, and heard mainly mooing, crowing and babbling (cows, rooster and streams.)

Soon, we were in the homestretch. An almost gentle downhill into Sarria. "Almost" because, like seemingly most larger towns in Spain, Sarria is situated on a hill. picture this: you've walked between 15 and 30 miles. It's been very hot. You're quite dirty, so dirty, in fact that you don't know if that's a darker tan line or just lots more dirt around your ankles. You're dripping with sweat as you take your last steps towards what you're praying is a decent shower, and you look..... UP! You've got to climb dozens, maybe hundreds, of steps to get to your albergue in the old quarter of town. Every step is christened with Americanisms. Again the blog is appropriately named.