Camino Frances 2024 Day 15 - Jun 19, 2024

Today we walked 22 km from Sarria to Portomarin. It was our latest start yet as we went to the post office at 0830 to see how I could get my watch back. There were lots of issues to solve but Monica the manager was dogged and kept looking for a way - trying to do the online process then abandoning it and calling lots of numbers and calling in favors. She figured it out! What a spirit! While there we met an American family from Houston with their 12 year old picking up from where they had stopped 3 years ago on their first camino. We walked through mostly green wooded trails and villages with more livestock than agriculture, a very different feel and vegetation from the pre-Burgos phase. For the first time on the camnio, it rained and I had to put my poncho on. There are fewer cafes along the way now it seems, the food is of lower quality and things have taken a commercial feel. Indeed Sarria is where most pilgrims start, those who only do a week in the flat phase and in the zone that is required to be done to receive a pilgrim certificate. So I expect to see more tourist types - nothing wrong with that. The community feel from before is not back yet. We did meet interesting people - 80 year old Paul the prison guard from Salem OR with his two grown children, brother/sister from Australia whose mid 70 year old parents are walking 60 km ahead, the group of friends from Florida including an elderly couple of 72 and 81, Isabella the German from Munich who was doing 40 km per day and had started in St.Jean in mid May, and late in the day, a 20 year old from Germany who is doing a gap year or two before college. There was an entire class of about 30 kids from the international school in Barcelona too. Aside from Monica my highlight was a very friendly horse wo trotted across a field for some patting, leaving me wishing i had an apple for him. Other big news is that we crossed the 100 km mark and are counting down to zero. We added a day so that we do shorter distances each day and not have extra time once we get to Santiago. We’ve booked all the rooms ahead which is advisable at this stage. It’s beginning to feel like I don’t want this camino to end, to stay on the way which is yours and from where you can hear of others’ ways. I understand why people come each year or have been coming for 20 years. A true camino never ends.