· James Torr · Personal · 2 min read
Day 26: Palas de Rei – Arzúa 29.2 km
Today is the last big day before arriving in Santiago. 29 km, 6 hours walking straight. With breaks, it ends up being more like an 8 hour day. Breakfast in cafe central from the night before is a “Napolitano”: a pan au chocolat, and a cafe con leche, with milk always because the Spanish coffee is, let’s be charitable here, more drinkable with milk. Our small group joins up with the Spanish couple from the previous night who are having breakfast outside their hotel, a place that looks like The Overlook Hotel had a lovechild with a brutalist Soviet block of flats.
We walk three hours to get to our halfway point, Melide, which is famous for it’s pulpo, boiled or grilled octopus. It’s a nice rest stop and halfway point and we leave feeling refueled and fresh for the remainder of the walk.
The scenery is lush green all the way, similar to the UK in some ways but different. Rural life here in Galicia harkens back to a different age, long gone from south east England, and existent further out from that developed corner: Wales, Cornwall, further north. Agricultural life is baked into the clay earth of this part of Spain. Granaries on stilts (orreos) populate every village, livestock cover every spare space, chestnuts carpet the floors, mosses and pennyworts cover the local dry stone walls.
It’s a tiring day, but the fresh wind constantly brushing through the trees is comforting and calming. After a few hours of rest, we have our penultimate pilgrim night with some rice. It’s almost like the start of a joke. An Italian, a Spaniard and an Englishman walk into a 24 hour store to see what they can make for dinner. The food is good, not typical for our Italian companion but he enjoys it nonetheless. We laugh and joke, and enjoy good companionship.
We wonder whether this little bubble we are in is real, and the very different world we’re heading back to in a few days is unreal. Life on the Camino is simple and distraction free. We have time for each other, to share moments, to laugh and be close to one another. I hope I can take some of that spirit back with me, both to share with old friends, and remember with new.
