Yay! I Made It! Camino Ingles Day 2

September 7, 2017.  Neda to Pontedeume 11.3 miles (18.19k). This is according to my phone. John Brierley’s book and Eroski Consumer have it at 16km. 

Beautiful walk today, but I have to say that I’m beat!  Lots of up hill and down hill. Doing this without any training while working a desk job has really taught me a thing or 16. 

I was able to get going a bit earlier than yesterday.  It’s hard though because the sun isn’t even up until 8:00amish.  I really don’t like walking in the dark because I feel like I miss a lot.  Here are some pictures of the Neda Estuary that I might have missed if I’d left in the dark.

Below are two of the maps that I’m following (from J. Brierley’s book).

The elevation map. It looks like I’ll have some ups and downs today!

My first indication this morning that I’m back on the Camino.

This was a great walk on a somewhat chilly morning.  The walking path starts out on granite and cement and eventually changes to a boardwalk which goes through the salt marsh.  There were lots of walkers out, some were older couples, some were walking their dogs.

I had to look it up, but marismas means salt marsh.

No one was using it, but it looks like a good exercise course. 

A look back at some interesting buildings, including a church on the Xubia side of the estuary.

It seems that I spent the night in the town of Xubia, but in no time at all I was in the town of Neda.  Here’s the narrow lane that I walked in on; a minute later a car came through and nearly scared the s#%*t out of me since the lane is so narrow and I’m so wide (with my backpack).  I also took this picture of a cemetery.  

Not too long afterwards I climbed my first hill of the day which ended at the sign for Silva.

Lots of gardens.  Can you see the green beans?

The cat below didn’t even look up when I talked to him!  One of several cats and dogs that I saw today.

If you remember from yesterday, there were two shortcuts to get from Ferrol to Pontedeume which avoid Neda.  Here’s what option two looks like from this side of the Ria (estuary).  You can see San Martín de Xubia to the left of the big bridge with the pedestrian bridge in between.

Yay, I made it to the top of the first hill!

Lots of quiet roads with nice homes,  beautiful plants and an area to wash your clothes!

Where I live the plant above is an annual and comes in a 4 inch pot.

I had to huddle underneath one of these in a cold, wet day to have some breakfast.

Below is a picture of option #1 from yesterday. 

This is a good picture since it also shows the Port area of Ferrol on the left. From there it was all downhill to Fene where I took a short break and also found a pastry store.

Here’s a picture for my mom!

Boy I look hot and sweaty!

I had a piece of tortilla with chorizo, tomato, orange juice, but didn’t eat the bread. The pastry looks funny, but it’s a chocolate covered elefant ear.

The next stage was another hill going through woodland with the scent of eucalyptus in the air and then a series of country roads.  I saw lots of fruit including lemons, kiwi, apples and grapes.

The grapes made me think of home and my grape arbor.  I had a great time looking at all of the arbors that were in this area!

I finally got to Vilar do Colo! I was tired, hot and sweaty.  Well, really mostly hot and sweaty. I had an Orange Fanta.  Second soda for me in about two years!

Downhill again to get to the beach town of Cabanas.  Very nice walking except for a stretch along the side of a busy road.  Not really dangerous, but it made me nervous.

A much bigger geranium than what I normally see at home!

My first view of Cabanas in the photo below. I really tried not to look since the anticipation of arriving can make this part of the walk seem to be the slowest.

Another short rest after walking down hill.  For me the down hill is almost as difficult as the uphill!  Then I finally arrived in Cabanas and could see across the bridge to Pontedeume.

I made it!!!!

This reminded me a bit of the Caminho Portuguese da Costa.  We would always end our day by walking over a bridge to our destination.

Once I got there I realized that something was going on in town.  It turns out that September 7-11 is their Pear Festival.

Very very busy, but I managed to get a clean, safe, economical room.  It’ll be noisy tonight, but that’s ok.  I might slip down to the bar and get some orujo or maybe cuarenta y tres licor. Below is a picture of my room after I made myself at home. 

It turns out that I really didn’t have a dinner.  I wasn’t really hungry which isn’t a great sign.  I do think that I got enough calories though since I got an ice cream cone and this…….

Tomorrow I have to decide whether I’m going to Betanzos or stopping early in Miño.

I’m inching my way along.  I think that it’ll depend on how I feel. Miño has a nice beach!

Go Rocky Go! Camino Ingles Day 1

September 6, 2017.    Ferrol to Neda 9 miles today plus some walked yesterday for a total of 9.6 miles (15.5km).

Every time I start a Camino I’m really nervous. Will I be ok, can I do it, will I get blisters, these are only a few of the doubts that I have right before a Camino. This time it’s a bit worse because I didn’t train at all AND I didn’t lose my winter weight.

Today though I had a nice beginning;  I slept through my alarm!  Also I was very foggy this morning (hopefully the last of the jet lag!).  I pulled myself together, set aside my doubts and was able to get going at about 9:15am.  I really think that this was one of the latest departures in my entire history!

First step was to find the yellow arrows. Here is a map of the Magdalena section of Ferrol.  This area is kind of like an outdoor shopping mall.  My hotel was in Almendra street just above it and I walked from there down Terra street this morning.

I always get a bit lost getting out of cities, and today was no exception.  Here is a statue that I found while trying to find my way.

Here’s the yellow arrow!

Remember in the Wizard of Oz everyone told Dorothy to “follow the yellow brick road”?  Well today everyone told me to keep the water in my right. This meant going through Ferrol’s Port and Naval area.

After that I was in the Carranza neighborhood.  They have a wonderful walking area and park along the water.  I saw many people with their dogs and a few runners.

I’n not sure what the tree below is, but there were spiney things on the ground underneath.

Also, I’ve been told that this type of sign can give me information on my cell phone?  How does it work?

There were even people digging for clams and a windsurf school!

Not too long afterwards I have my first decision of the day; do I go to Pontedeume or not?  If you look at a map (from J. Brierley’s book) you can see that there are a total of three ways to get to Pontedeume.

Well, I had decided that I would stop in Neda for the night, so it really didn’t matter anyway.  Instead I had a small bite to eat in Gandara.

I could see a McDonalds in the distance, but decided to have a Serrano ham and cheese sandwich and fresh squeezed orange juice.

Gandara was kind of interesting, lots of big furniture stores and car dealerships; I walked by SEAT, Renault and KIA.

The ground changed from granite to boardwalk (memories of Caminho Portuguese da Costa) and there were also people using the side of the path to do some running training and then I ran into a man resting his sheep.

I could not get the sheep to stand still so that I could be in the picture. I must have smelled pretty bad by that time.  The old man was very nice and kept telling me to “keep walking with the water on my right.”

The next small town was Naron, which had some nice houses and some  gardens.  I hope that my mom looks at the pots at the base of the trees!

Now I was close to the second option to Pontedeume and the monastery of San Martín de Xubia.

Here are some interesting animal pictures shortly after the Monastery.

Next I came to this:

I hope that you understand why I’ve been thinking about the Wizard of Oz movie.  I started to take the left way, but thought that it was heading wrong so I took the right way; literally and maybe figuratively also.

My phone ran out of memory so no pictures of this section.  I ended up asking for some directions to Pension Maragoto from a really nice man.  His directions took me off the Camino onto Estrada de Castela.  I walked this for awhile, but was ready to stop so checked in  instead at the Hotel Kensington.

The room is small, but just right for me and the owner was nice though he wanted to talk about US politics.

A Pilgrims first duty when finished walking is to shower and wash your clothes.  Hopefully mine will dry before tomorrow. This morning my underwear was a bit wet and I didn’t feel comfortable pinning it to my backpack to dry!  

The next thing to do was eat!  I was hungry, but not ravenous.  I did have the Menu del Dia (8.5E, I have no idea how much this is in USD).

Pasta soup, chicken and French fries and homemade flan. Well, my day is done…….I did pretty ok in spite of my morning doubts.  No blisters so far.

Tomorrow, on to Pontedeume. Hopefully I’ll start earlier.