Wow! What a difference not having the backpack on makes! Very nippy again this morning when we got up: a leisurely breakfast at 8am, in the car at 9am and back at Baamonde by 9:20am, Al with a jumper on for the first time. 3kms on the highway to start then a lovely walk through a mix of hamlets, old oak forest and the usual pine and eucalyptus forests. For the second or third time only, we missed a turn and got slightly off the Camino but only for a few hundred meters then regained the track before stopping after an hour and a half at Carballedo for coffees and a bocadillo. As we drove to Baamonde we saw perhaps a dozen peregrinos walking along the highway, and most of them were here having their mid-morning break! From Carballedo a very similar walk towards Miraz for lunch. We stopped along the way at a place where a guy does amazing works in stone and also does candle wax Knights Templar sellos to go in your credencial so we got one of those each. From Miraz, where we were scheduled to stop, at the suggestion of the folk who run the hotel we are staying at, we pushed on to Alto do Mámoa, about 6 1/2 kms further on. The landscape really changed as we scaled the next mountain or hilltop up to 610 m – we stepped out from forest into fairly exposed granite as we moved over the top. We called our hosts from the sign at Alto da Mámoa and we’re back in our room by 4:10pm for a 21km day and 743kms overall…
steelewalking 