April 23, 2017
Another day that didn’t go as planned, but it taught me to never underestimate myself. I was only supposed to go 29.5km (only, ha!) but it turns out the town at 29.5km didn’t have any food so had to go an additional 1.7km. Having dinner is kinda a big deal after hiking all day.
Since I didn’t sleep much the night before I slept in until 7am. Crazy how that is “sleeping in” now. I ate breakfast in town because there weren’t any good restaurants on the way. I didn’t leave until almost 8:30. BIG MISTAKE. I felt like I was hiking in the desert today. I definitely whipped out the umbrella, ha!
After a couple hours, I was so happy to reach the final 100km mark. Still can’t believe I’ve hiked over 700km across Spain.
At about halfway through the day I reached Portomarin. I was so excited to arrive because it meant I could open a letter from Michel. You see, to help make my last 4 days easier, he wrote me 4 letters that I could open at specific times. And the first one was after I crossed over 100km. I didn’t want to damage it so I waited to open it first letter at my lunch stop. It was such a treat! Words cannot express how touched I felt at his effort to make me smile, knowing I had been struggling the past couple of days.
After Portomarin I knew it would be a grueling 12km (at this point I didn’t know I would actually do an additional 1.7km) I asked Michel if we could hike together to help pass the time. It was so lovely hiking with company again. I feel like I could enjoy the company even more than usual since I had been hiking alone the past couple of days.
After realizing we had to hike further Nathan joined us for the last 5km. We were all so delirious from the heat and exhaustion we just kept laughing at the silliest things. Not going to lie, it was not the most terrible 5km, felt quite fast. But during the moment it was rough.
The rest of the night was super calm. Just had a big meal, per usual. And then laid down. My body is going to be a stiff board tomorrow 😩
But only 27 km tomorrow! Phew!
100km marker!! Who hooo!
The huge bridge I had to cross. About the size of the bridge going into washington, for the folks back in OR/WA. Picture doesn’t do it justice.
The first letter/post card from Michel! With a Camino pin 👏🏼 made me so happy!
Pretty much sums up the rest of the day, just being weird LOL
-Ashley
El Camino Chronicles 