Was I panicked? Are the bathroom rituals of bears known about?
The only thing I could think to do was to run into the shower and get some COLD water on them (there was zero running involved BTW...hobbled is a better word). But....one minute later I was better. Then after Mass (no English...so Spanish again) and food and taking in my washing I went to sleep. Two hours later the cramps were back again...so back into cold shower....took a few minutes longer...but eventually it worked. So at the time of writing this (4;04am) all good. Looked up causes YouTube last night and I think it's a combination of overuse and not being hydrated enough. So onto today!
The fist "main" village (and in all cases these are tiny...a few houses and maybe a hostel or somewhere to eat) is about 10km away. Looks like again the early part of the day will be uphill (but not as steep as yesterday) and the rest of the day (another 15km) is "gently rolling hills" we'll see).
A quick word before I set out about the "types" of people I see on the trail. Firstly EVERYONE is walking ONE WAY. The only people you occasionally see coming the opposite way are locals. Other than that you are (in my case at least) having people pass you. At this time of the year...the vast majority of people who passed me yesterday were young Spaniards. Late teens/early 20s. But also older people (again mainly Spanish, but I heard German, American and a few Irish and Italian accents too). There are two types of people who do this (trackers and pilgrims) your reasons for doing this are very different as you need to walk your own Camino (actually I have seen a number of cyclists and what looked like a father and a young teenage son on two magnificent horses complete with horse paniers!).
At the Pilgrims Mass in the towns the majority of people there are under 30.
Today's walk was needless to say- tireing. I left at 5am so by the time of first breakfast (maybe 9k - coffee and crossaint) ordered in the dark and left as the sun was rising. What I've really noticed is that because you can only see the limited vison that your head torch is giving you...you can't see the reality of the hills in front of you...so it's less scary. It also lovely and cool (far from "cold" maybe 15°c but shaded).
I meet my first pilgrims of the day about 90 minutes in. They were planning on doing 40km today! He was from South Africa and this was his 5th Camino.She was from Texas and as soon as she said it I said that my first "meet" yesterday was with the person she had started out the journey with! That's the small world of the Camino! But when he first meet me he said (now we are in the dark in a Galecian woods) "you are Patrick" it wasn't a question. I thought "oh you know Paddy, Irish" etc. And I asked him to say that again....and again he said it as a STATEMENT. Well you could have knocked me over with a feather (in fairness with the state of my body...that would have been easy). So, as you may or may not know back in May I finally tracked down my original birth cert...registered as PATRICK JOSEPH. I told them my story. We spoke for about a kilometre and she had said how supportive her husband had been, and I said...same here. "Would your wife have liked to do this?' she asked. I said "she's not that foolish."..but her disability and her recent recovery would have made it difficult. As we parted he held back with me to say he had lost his wife to cancer only a few months ago...they had walked the previous Caminos together, and he wanted to do this one in her memory and then expore other new geographical adventures. It was quite an emotional encounter (not at the time...but as I thought about it during the day)
Stopped for lunch at 9:17am Potato Omelette (cold sliced slab...that's an Omelette over here!) It was beautiful!,
Today was a longer distance than yesterday...and there was a large (by "hill stroll" srandards) overall incline of just over 1000m. Draining, because it's relentless...very very few "flat" parts today. Last stop was about 6km out of my final destination for today. Coffee and a slice of Tarta de Santiago (not a clue...but it was sweet and tasty).
My kmph at this stage of the day are close to 20 minutes per km. But I don't care...it's just another day closer to Santiago De Compostella.
I slept for about 2 hours after getting my room...Pilgrims Mass and dinner...and another early start in the morning...as I realise I have about 28km to do to get to my accommodation tomorrow!!!
Once again I am keeping you in my thoughts and prayers...and thank you all so much for keeping me in yours.
This made a beautiful read Gerry..Your encounter with that couple is beautiful.. Hope the legs stayed in good form today..luv to you.x
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