Si. Julian to Argua
I got a good start after what had to be one of the quietist albergue I have slept in. It was still dark with an overcast sky as I walked through the woods heading towards Leboreiro and hopefully breakfast. Unfortunately it was brewed coffee with no espresso. I had a piece of breakfast cake with it and lit off again for Melide. Almost immediately I fell in with an English woman transplanted in Spain for the last twenty years. I walked into Melide where they are famous for their pulpo, a local speciality made from octopus. At only ten in the morning that didn’t sound to appetizing so I pushed on stopping on the large hill at the edge of town for a shirt change and then took off for Argua where I hoped to make my mind up about how far to go. In the end my shin made it up for me and by one o’clock I was tucked away in a private Albergue which was very modern and nice but the younger travelling carnival pulled in an hour later and an afternoon of rest wasn’t in the cards. My shin was also really getting sore so I decided to take Linda the Norwegian nurse’s advice and went to the Farmacia to see what they suggested. The lady there offered an inflammatory cream or pills. I decided on both and by the next day they had done a noticeable improvement. . I had a big lunch and a big dinner and was making an illicit visit the local candy store when I heard a voice behind me say “I thought you were a diabetic?” to which my usual answer is “Do you have a warrant?” and then "don't tell my wife" I turned around to find Stephanie, a young Texan teaching ESL in Barcelona. She had walked all day with David who was planning on walking into Santiago that night. She said his feet were really bad and that he was tired but still determined to follow his plan through. She knew we walked together a lot and wondered if I could talk to him before he got too far. I found him in a restaurant feeding up and between the two of us plus the fact that it was overcast with no early moonrise he capitulated agreeing to let us find him a bed which they did in my Albergue somewhere in an overflow. He said he would leave at 6:30 so I said I planned to leave at 7:30 and would catch up and walk into Santiago with him. I headed back to my bunk and listened to my IPod since I have nothing but my guide to read or my log to write and in the end drifted away to Quicksilver Messenger’s Happy Trails.
To be continued