Lidia and I left our albergue in Vilaserio, after a slice of apple tart and a coffee that we warmed up in the albergue microwave. We set off in the frost that didn’t melt for the next couple of hours. Nonetheless, the walking was easy with the sun shining on us all day. The countryside is beautiful – Hilly and green.
This epilogue to the Camino is different in character to the walking that I experienced on the Camino Mozarabe from Almeria, the Via de la Plata, and the Camino Sanabres. Here, we bump into others throughout the day. As we left the cafe after our 10:30 coffee break, we met Raffael, a walker from Mallorca who walked with us briefly yesterday. He had stopped at an albergue a couple of km earlier than ours. Later, as we ate lunch at Olleros, we witnessed the rest of the pilgrim herd on this section of the albergue stream into the same restaurant – like the back end of a longitudinal wave that’s making its way along a spring. There’s a large group of Spanish walkers with umbrellas on their backpacks, a Spanish couple, Marco a French speaking Canadian from somewhere between Montreal and Québéc city, Alfonso from central California, and Lucia from Italy.
Thanks to our long first day walk, we are at the front of the wave and we walked 4km further to Logoso. A couple of people have gone past us to Hospital (1km up the road), and I guess more are staying in Olveiroa. It’s pleasant to see the same faces at intervals, and everyone is cheerful and friendly. Tonight, Alfonso, Lidia and I are sharing a dorm. I enjoyed having dinner with Alfonso and comparing notes about our Caminos. (Alfonso also met the violent man on the way out of Santiago – apparently he threw a kick at Alfonso. I guess he must have some mental health problems).