568.27

Friday 8th May 2010 (Sarria to Portomarin – total distance walked 593.14km)

Today was Li Leng, Steven and Teddy’s first day of walking. They did very well given that it was not exactly an easy route. They went through a good mix of terrains and other conditions – asphalt, smooth earthen paths, rough rocky paths, gravel paths, walked through streams, walked over all sorts of dung (wow, we have never had to walk over so much dung before on this journey – the paths were so covered that it was no longer a matter of trying to avoid them, it was choosing the oldest patches! Oh, I just found out that Li Leng is terrified of creepy crawlies. She met with 14 of them. In the 26 days that we have been walking, we rarely see any – perhaps 2 or 3 at most. The more you want to avoid them, the more you will encounter!). When we set off, it was raining and it simply got heavier and colder too. In fact we were freezing. Even with rain coats, we were drenched. My North Face Hyvent “supposed to be so good” rain coat was soaked right through. Fortunately my Marmot over-trousers kept my cargo pants bone dry and my Gore-tex shoes were equally good in keeping my feet dry. I was totally disappointed at my North Face rain coat. We were lucky that the rain stopped and our clothes managed to dry. For a first day’s walk, I must say that the 24.87km was not easy at all. There were quite a few ascents and one or two steep descents too. Some of the paths were really rocky and steep and because of the rain we had to walk through mud. Had the weather been good, it would have been a very lovely route because the scenery was nice and the route rather peaceful. That also accounted for the several Kodak moments we had along the way, resulting in us taking much longer to get to our destination than planned.  Despite all the difficulties caused by the rain, our three newcomers took them all in their stride. Very well done indeed. The landscape in Galicia is much greener because Galicia is known to be a wet region – we can attest to that because not only did we set off in rain, just when we set foot in Portomarin, the skies opened. There was no warning at all and we scrambled to put on our rain gear. Needless to say, we were all drenched again. We are all worried now because if our rain gear does not dry in time, we will not be able to walk tomorrow. The weather forecast is very dim for the next few days. We are all going to pray hard that the weather will change for the better. Steven has a little blister but we hope that with all the experience gained on the Camino on this subject, we will be able to help him contain it and minimise discomfort. Li Leng is doing fine and Teddy, no sweat at all because he is a regular runner. It will be another 27km tomorrow so, as usual, I need my beauty sleep. Nite nite!