Sunday July 9, 2017
After our regular breakfast of fresh toasted bread, squeezed orange juice and ‘ American ‘coffees ( which is espresso with hot milk ) we left our hotel at the outskirts of Redondela on our 15 km (10 mile ) march to Pontevedra.
There are two things that I haven’t been able to get used to – the smoking, especially in the restaurants and cafes and the fact the the evening meal ( supper, dinner or whatever you want to call it ) doesn’t start until 8 pm at the earliest. However, I am very fond of the cafes and the wonderful breads and pastries.
Today we saw a lot more hikers along the way. We met some people from California who were on a self-guided tour. We talked to a mother and daughter that were part of the group, until they sped ahead of us.
At the beginning of the hike , we had several steep elevation changes. There were sections where we had to hike up and eventually back down but few of them were gradual inclines and some consisted of dirt or gravel, which made them a bit slippery.
Unfortunately, the pictures don’t show the severity of the inclines or how slippery they were.
There were several hikers that we met along the way, although we didn’t get a chance to strike up conversations with many of them.
We met a couple from California, in the late morning and walked with them for a few hours. He is a defensive martial arts instructor
and she works on a nature preserve.
As usual, the terrain varied a lot and just before we got into Pontevedra, there was a wooded bridge attached to a tunnel that we had to cross.
The latter half of the trek was fairly flat. We had reached an elevation of 150 meters ( 500 ft ) but we ended up at an elevation of 22 meters when we reached the hotel.
After we arrived at the Comercio Hotel in Pontevedra, we went for a late lunch and then checked out the surrounding area.
Since we had eaten a big lunch, Pete and Kathy opted to skip the late meal, however, I had a small snack at 7 pm before going to bed.
We are getting near Santiago and anticipate arriving there in a few days, depending on how far we attempt to go each day, but for us, this is a journey and not a race or a competition so it might take longer.
Ralf Hamm 