Sarria to Mercadoiro

 

Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela

Day 2

8 May 2015

We were up at 0645 with everyone else.  Lights automatically came on at 0700.  We were on our way by 0745.  It rained last night and everything this morning is cool, damp and green.

I only wanted to walk 13km to Ferrerios today but Sally wanted to walk further.

There are a lot of pilgrims who start their Camino from Sarria (about 25%). Starting here qualifies a pilgrim for their Compostela.  A certificate that states the pilgrim has walked (the minimum) 100 Kms. of the Camino.

Above we came across a pilgrim who is traveling by mule and camping out.

Today, we broke out ALL of our clothing.  It was windy so we got out the wind breakers, it started to lightly rain so we got our rain ponchos, and we had to strip down to short sleeve shirts because it got hot and sunny.  The trail was muddy in places and there were many people walking the trail.  The birds were an orchestra of songs that persisted all day.  We came across two young girls who were deaf and dumb and were asking pilgrims for donations and to sign a list stating where they were from.  We donated but later heard this was a scam.??

We also came across this man "Busking" along the trail.  

I wanted to leave my stone at the 100 Km marker.  This marker was just shy of the real 100 Km marker but I did not know this and so this is where I left my stone and prayed a Hail Mary and thanked God for my health, Sally and the opportunity to walk the Camino.

Along the trail we saw what looked like collard greens in every garden we passed, but some of these were growing up to 5-7 foot tall.  I asked a dairy farmer about this, as he was also growing them, and he confirmed they were “Coles” (collards).

We would pass many old churches and gardens along the Camino.

We did a total of 17km today and made it to Mercadoiro where we would stay at the Albergue Mercadoiro (10€ each).  It had free WiFi or WeFe as they pronounce it, washer and dryer (3€ and 2€), a bar and restaurant.  Met Jamie from England again but she was headed on to Portomarin, another 6kms.

At the albergue, we met a woman from Texas.  She had retired from working as a dispatcher for BNSF in Montana.  She had started her Camino a few years back but had to stop when she developed a severe case of tendonitis in the heel of her foot.  So this year she came back to finish her journey on the Camino.

It was too early for dinner (about 5:00 pm) so we sat down and ordered glasses of wine from the bar.  The host/bartender also brought us some snacks to try (left overs from today’s lunch).  In the mean time I went to do our laundry.  I could not get the washer to accept my coins, only to learn from our host, that you could not do a wash and dry clothes at the same time as this would over load the circuit breaker.  When the dryer finished I washed our clothes and hung them out on the clothes line to dry.