First day. When we left the hostel, it was still dark outside. We walked under the fluorescent orange street lights past the panaderia, past the men perched on the bar counters sipping their morning coffee, past the children waiting for the school bus at the bus stop, past all the stores and gas stations to the edge of town into smaller and smaller roads until the sound of traffic became more and more distant.
We followed the Camino waymarkers (the image of a shell) and yellow arrows prominently spray painted on all types of surfaces. We pointed and named all the fruits and flowers and vegetables and trees we recognized. (“Mira!”) We petted cats, dogs and a mushroom cap. We walked on stone roads, gravel roads, dirt roads, an old stone bridge and through old growth forests. We admired old stone houses and walls made of giant stone blocks covered in lichens.
We found a music sheet stapled to a pole outside a church and chanted Panis Angelicus. We said hello to a man outside his farm. As we walked past the edge of the from, we looked back and saw him beat his shepherd dog with a stick because the dog refused to go back inside the yard – the loud dull thwacks of wood on flesh still reverberating in my chest until now. The dog didn’t yelp nor run, and eventually followed the man’s order. (Should I have said something?) We learned that the people in Galicia speak galego, which sounds more Portuguese than Spanish.
We saw house-like structures outside people’s houses with stone frames, brick/wood walls and brick roofs and later learned they’re used to store corn for the winter. We stepped on acorns, pine leaves, chestnuts, eucalyptus bark and rotten apples. We picked and ate figs, apples, peaches, blueberries, and raspberries that were growing on the side of the road for snacks. I’d like to think the people who live on this road had deliberately planted these fruit trees for the benefits of the pilgrims. We saw a yard with lots of cats and kittens and the lady offered for us to take one of the kittens.
We walked 23km today and made it to an albergue in Cea, an old stone house that’s been retrofitted with modern furnishings (insulation, glass windows). Our legs are tired. I’m hoping they’re not too sore tomorrow.








