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Camino Inglés Return 14 - 15/10/2023

    Well, this did not go as scheduled at all! At 9 o’clock I was having what the French call a “grasse matinée” with my bus only leaving around 11 o’clock. However I looked up the exact departure time and discovered that that was 8:50h!!! Where I had got this idea of 11ish from I do not know and cannot imagine! Panik!  Here I was lying in bed, having happily sorted out the blog, some more photos - now I knew how to do it - my belongings scattered all over the place, nothing packed, not having had a shower, nor breakfast.  And what do I do now???  I did not even try to see whether there was anything available via Bordeaux to Rennes on the Flixbus site like my originally planned trip. Did briefly consider stayng another night in Santiago, but seeing the difficulties we or rather Andrea had in finding this apart hotel I quickly discarded that idea. Thursday had been a national holiday - the day of “Spanishness” - so lots of people took the Friday off work and everywh...
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Camino Inglés Day 6 Sigüeiro to Santiago 13/10/2023

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   16 km    4.5 hours most of which walked because you cannot make pauses in the pouring rain, except for one huge pilgrim stopping point, where you could have breakfast, coffee, drinks. Made it! Arrived at 2 pm. My taxi was there at 8:30 am. In pouring rain! I knew it was going to rain, but it came down in buckets. And when I told the driver to take me back to Sigüeiro he could not believe he had heard right - go back rather than forward to Santiago?!  However he took me back to a bar which was open for breakfast and there were several pilgrims who left shortly afterwards shrouded in grey or black capes. This I cannot understand. In the rain (or the night) you need to make yourself visible. For that reason I wear hiviz ankle straps at home and here in addition I had cut up one of those hiviz vests to make a cover for my pack and a sort of bib for my front so I can be seen by oncoming traffic. As I was coming out of town just before the bridge there was a woman open...
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Camino Inglés Day 5 Leira/Buscas to Sigüeiro 12/10/2023

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   17.4 km     5 hours of which I walked  3:34h  and the rest pauses checking the map, lunch, siesta and palavers, etc. Since there was no room, not even a bed, to be had in Sigüeiro I booked myself into a hotel 7 km away and got a taxi to take me from Sigüeiro to the hotel and pick me up tomorrow morning to take me back to where he picked me up today and I will continue/finish my walk to Santiago tomorrow. Since last night I had already walked 3 km to an off-track hotel I took a taxi this morning to get back to the camino. I had met two youngish Austrian women at breakfast who were in the same situation. So I offered them a lift in my taxi which they gladly accepted. They absolutely wanted to pay the whole of 10 € which however I did not allow. Solidarity on the camino - the camino provides as it is said. Don’t know where they are staying in Sigueiro.  I also caught up with Simone who was busy taking photographs. Taking photographs slows you down consider...
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Camino Inglés Day 4 Presedo to Leira (off camino) 11/10/2023

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This morning I forgot to set the tracker in motion. Remembered about one hour after I left. So assuming that I walked at about 4 km/h you may add 4 km to the picture and statistics of the trail. 17.3 + 4 = 21.3 km.       8:30  -  16:30   so 8 hours of which 4.06 hours walked. No sitdown short pauses, but the usual pauses to stop and check the tracker and a long palaver with a fellow pilgrim I had met at the albergue last night, a long sit in the restaurant at Bruma, a good siesta shortly afterwards. Out late. After everybody had left, see photo, I took my time to get ready, had breakfast etc. after the experience yesterday morning. Then the walk became noticeably more difficult  - mostly ups and steeper and longer all the way up to Hospital de Bruma - will try to post a profile of that part. However the sky was somewhat hazy and later in the day some cloud, so the sun was not as hot and there was quite a lot of wind. Hospital da Bruma is...
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Camino Ingles Day 3 - Miño to Presedo 10/10/2023

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   22.4 km    10 hours of which 5:6 actual walking, the rest including a shortish stop in the morning, lots of stops to check my tracker, sightseeing in Betanzos, a long sit in a bar in the middle of the town, and a good long siesta in beautiful solid(?) shade under a series of chestnut trees.  Out just before 8 am and it was still quite dark. However since my hotel was in the middle of the town I had quite a long walk in lit streets until I ran out of street lights and found myself having to go down stairs to the path in complete darkness. No real problem because I had my headlamp ready in my hand. I just find it hard to avoid potholes and stumbling over bits sticking out from the surface of the path. So I will avoid now leaving into the dark. The morning was fresh and I advanced nicely. Had one shortish pause, not because I needed one, but because I thought it prudent.  Walkabout in the centre of Betanzos. A lovely town with a very old town centre, two church...
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Camino Inglés Day 2 Fene to Miño 09/10/2023

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  20.09 km.   9 hours of which actual walking 4:34 h.  Sunny, 32 degrees C Woke up before the alarm went at 6 am, prepared my coffee and packed while it cooled and then had a leisurely hour, reading the newspaper and having a look at what the camino had in store for me today. And for once I left into the dark at 7:45h.  Wonderfully cool and no problem finding my way because of well lit streets. I was surprised how long it was before the sky was beginning to light up, well after 8 o’clock! Had my first pause after 2 hours, many stops consulting the map, actual walking only about 1:45 h. 15 min stop and here I am stopping again after only three quarters of an hour during which I had a long palaver with a man and another palaver with a woman who came struggling up the hill I was going down. She warned me about the steep climb I would have to face on the other side of the valley. Am now in Pontedeume - at sea level, sitting in a bar with a café con leche and una tónica,...
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Camino Inglés - Day 1 - Ferrol to Fene 08/10/2023

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20 km (estimated because I forgot to interrupt my camino counter when I took the taxi)        8 hours, 1 hour of which for lunch, another hour to go back by taxi to the albergue where I had left my second shirt on the drying rack (the only garment I had washed last night)), 40 min. siesta in lovely shade and the numerous times I checked my camino navigator because there are several alternate routes intertwined with each other.  Terrain flat most of the time. So last night going from the Estación de Autobuses to the Albergue I got lost once or twice, but did remember just before arriving at the Albergue to hop into a bar and buy some food for my evening meal and for the walk today and of course a bottle of red wine asking them to uncork it for me. Have done that on previous caminos - nothing like sharing a bottle of wine to bring people together. However this time there was only one taker to finish half the bottle and I filled the other half into a spare plastic ...
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