Sunday Oct 30. Abadin to Vilalba. 4 hrs 50 mins, 20.7km.
After two days of rain, it was a dry cold day. After a good breakfast at Casa Goas, we started out at 8.35am (the clock was adjusted back one hour at 3am). The temperature was 48F. This was the fall temperature that we had been expecting and it finally arrived. We opted for light pullovers as we figured that we will eventually warm up through the walking. That was indeed the case, though we may need our down jackets if it gets windy.
We quickly progressed to a quiet country road within a couple of minutes. And then into the countryside, via forested paths adjacent to farms and open meadows.
The cool air, damp dirt paths, low hanging clouds and rays of sunshine created a tapestry of colors.
Today’s countryside walk in cool weather was greatly enhanced by the fact that we were 99.999% of the time by ourselves. The few people we came across were working the land, three walking pilgrims, four cycling pilgrims, a lady walking her dog, one crafts seller. As the tag line goes, this was ‘priceless’. To be able to soak all these in, with one’s loved one by the side.
Joon found out that about 1,000 pilgrims had arrived at Santiago on the 29th. I am expecting that as we get closer to Santiago, as more routes converge, we will start coming across more pilgrims as we walk.
We arrived in Vilalba at about 1.30pm. We found there was a pulperia opened. Yummy!
We discussed our experiences to date, and there was commonality on the core themes. But this story still has four days to be written.
Journey Within 