Day 9 - National Day of Spain (Lugo to Ferreira 27 km)
‘The celebration of the National Day of Spain is the day the Spanish people commemorate the history of the country, recognising and giving value of what has been achieved together and to reconfirm the commitment for the future as a nation. The 12 of October celebrates union and brotherhood, also showing the ties of Spain with the international community.’ (Wikipedia)
After the national celebrations which lasted well into the early hours of the morning, I allowed myself to sleep in a bit. I found an open café shortly after 7:00 for my café con leche and I also picked up a couple of sandwiches for the day. I was on the road by 8:00 and ran into Paul and Dan from the US, walking with them for a couple of hours. The day was another perfect one for walking with light cloud cover and cool temperatures for the morning and sunshine for the afternoon.
Most of the day was spent on or beside roads with a few excursions into the forests. I savoured these times as we walked through plantations of eucalyptus trees and beside majestic chestnut and oak trees. I'm making sure that I do not rush these few final days.
Our Dutch hosts at the albergue, Tom and Ria, were very kind and thoughtful. They are also very good cooks as this meal was one of the best I've had in Spain.
Many familiar faces kept arriving all afternoon however we had two new people show up. Ian and Angela from South Carolina are on their final stages of their Camino having started in Irun a few weeks ago. This is the first time that anyone in our bubble has seen them and we were excited to talk to them and are looking forward to walking into Santiago with them.
We are less that 75 km from Santiago and the path now has the short-timers on it. These are the pilgrims who are only doing 100 km, the minimum distance to get a Camino compostella (certificate). They bring a different dimension to the path but those of us with hundreds of kilometres under our belt welcome them - even though they don't have pilgrim stink. 😁
