Stage 35 – Portomarin to Airexe 18km / 74km

Just good plain walking today. The crowds continue to thicken as daily departures from Sarria increase with summer. There are queues for cafes, toilets and stamps and long processions of students and tour groups….but we don’t mind. After 700 odd kilometers we’ve found ourselves in a very chilled place. We stop four or five times a day for coffee or food or wine and take our time. Why hurry to an albergue when we can sit in the shade of this tree and watch the world go by? What are we here for?

Sitting under one such tree a tall Frenchman recognizes us from yesterday and makes a bee line for our delightful patch of shade, ‘my wife would not be alive if it were not for you!’, he calls out gratefully (with a little tongue in cheek), and we take a selfie. Yesterday we had helped his wife down a narly bit of track into Portomarin and they were both effusively thankful.

At a later stop, we reconnect with the Romanians Christian and Alice and in an hilarious tripartite conversation with the very animated Spanish ladies seated next to us, (translated by Christian) we learn that in an 80 euro room, bedbugs came out of the timber head boards and bit chunks out of them. When they complained, the manager claimed the ladies had brought the bugs with them and charged them extra for cleaning!

Later Wolfgang and Erni join us and we discuss our mornings. We’d left Portomarin just after the morning rains had stopped, they, just before, ‘ah well’ says Erni with a smile.

Doing the math for our home runs into Santiago, we recognise that many of the catch ups are goodbyes now, it’s the beginning of the end, and the hugs are just that little bit more heart felt.

It was a steep walk up from the mirror-still Rio Mina at Portomarin this morning through forests dripping from the night’s rain, out onto undulating agricultural land. At the top of the climb an archeological dig has unearthed a 100 BC to 100 AD Roman fort with Celtic remains dating back to 400 BC. The site commands spectacular 360 degree views out over the surrounding lands. The remains suggest very cosy living conditions for the Romans; many small rooms with narrow joining passages.

As ever, everything is green. We pass through pine and eucalyptus plantations, dairy and livestock farms and fodder crops like corn and rye. There are maybe half a dozen small villages between Portomarin and Airexe but the first coffee and food stop is just over 8km march – its packed solid with caffeine and tortilla depleted pilgrims keen to restock. Happily the crowds do even themselves out across village bars and cafes as the day wears on. We note again just how much more money seems to have gone into facilities post Sarria; new albergues, new bars, new homes and barns of new stone, more cars parked in homes (more garages), brand new John Deer harvesters and tractors. It’s a rich agricultural area but the Camino’s increasing popularity is certainly preferentially helping the last 100km.

Although warm today it’s still been very pleasant in the shade and we wander the last few kilometers in relative solitude beneath the roadside glades, most of the crowds having jogged on to towns further afield.

Airexe, surrounded by timber and fields, has two bars, two albergues a church and a smattering of houses. Our hosts short plump stature is animated by her smiles, laughter and jolly countenance as she goes about checking us in, nothing seems to be a problem.

At the open bar down the road, the men play cards and drink while the woman bartend, wait tables cook and look after the children. I like it and vote for a return to these solid traditional values. Di…not so much. We dine here, farewell the guard goose, chooks, two dogs and six pigs, and wander back up the hill to bed and watch the evening thunder storms roll in.

Some stuff from yesterday that I ran out of memory for….