Hiking with Ernie

 

OK, it’s 9:25 AM Arca Spain time we’re about to start our final leg of our five day 70 mile 110 km walk. We have 12 1/2 miles to go today to Santiago. Wish us luck foot seems to be OK so far today. OK, made it to Santiago at 4 o’clock. We walked by the church looked around for a little bit and then headed to the hotel to lighten our load and then we’ll go back later tonight to Cathedral area tour around a little and eat in the area also. We went mass in the cathedral at 7:30 tonight and then walked through the narrow streets with a bunch of restaurants and gift shops and farmacias and other stores. It really does take one back in time.. The Cathedral Santiago de Compostella was started in the year 1075 and finished in 1211! It is an amazing building which you will see in the pictures! It’s getting late so I’m calling it a night and will post more tomorrow.

Today our hike was a shorter hike at 12 1/2 miles as compared to 18 yesterday. yesterday after hiking the 18 miles or so we both had about 45,000 steps. Robert had a few more for some reason but he had a goal of hitting 50,000 steps so after we ate dinner, we took a walk for another mile or so to get to that 50,000 for Robert! 50,000 steps in a day that’s a bunch of steps! Couldn’t get enough walking I guess in one day. Had to max the steps! LOL! I was really feeling it this morning. Had some pain in my feet particularly in my heels to start the day. I swapped my shoes out after about an hour and was able to make it most of the way without much difficulty but got pretty sore at the end of the day. We got to our hotel relatively early about 3 PM and staying off of my feet as much as possible right now. other than my feet issues, the day was pretty nice for the most part. Weather was really great to start. We stopped about an hour or so and to get a cup of coffee and started raining whil...

A really nice day today! Weather was excellent except for a moment long enough for us to get our rain gear on and then once again take it off in about a half mile!😀🤪 Today’s hike is sometime referred to as the “leg breaker” ( that’s encouraging,LOL) Well, no legs were broken but while it was a loooong hike it was probably the easiest yet! Rolling heals but no long or steep uphill climbs and the scenery was wonderful! Trees shaded us a good portion of the hike, like probably 80-90%of the way. Robert and I both commented that the hike seemed to go quicker that the previous two days. This 18 mile trek took us 8 hours and our feet keep reminding us about it! 😆 we had a truly delicious dinner tonight consisting of a unique tomato salad, croquets and for my main course I had beef cheeks stewed for 17 hours and then laid on a bed of sweet potatoes. Robert’s main course was an excellently prepared fish (hake) and chips. Sorry, no pictures :(

Friday was another good day but really tiring. 15.5 miles and nearly constant uphill but fortunately not steep, for first 8 miles before flattening out some. The terrain today was mostly street trails or trail right along side of the road which were wide and well maintained. We walked mostly through beautiful farmland with lots of opportunities to pick blackberries which lined large sections of the trail. Many sections of road were tree lined and completely covered. This is wine country also and yes we picked a grape or two that were hanging over the fences 🙂 Our lodging today is a quaint farm home that is quite unique. Our meal this evening consisted of Piquillo (red peppers, not hot) stuffed with hake (fish) and baby prawns in a great semi-tart sauce ooh so good, a main course of beef pot roast smothered in gravy and cream potatoes with carrots, and then finished off with a small slice of bread pudding and a scoop of chocolate ice cream! the cow video was from our first day on the t...

Hey!hey!hey! We’re here about to hit the trail! 😮😀. We’ve fattened up with a big breakfast a ready to rock!! ok, we hit the trail this morning about 9:30am local time. The weather is Awesome, upper 50s to start the day and the high was 70!! Partly cloudy with only one minute or two of rain!! Just long enough for us to break out rain gear, walk a half mile then put it back up!!🤪 There were apple and pear trees all along the trail as well as wild blackberries, umm umm good! We had lunch at a nice little place on the trail and after 30 minutes or so hit the trail again headed to Portomarin. You’ll see a pumpkin patch and then a vegetable garden that was part of the restaurant we ain’t dinner at!! Can’t get any fresher than this. Portomarin is a quaint little place that was moved up from the river in the 1960s when the reservoir was built. The photos and videos are just some of today’s encounters. I'm posting tonight without videos as I can’t seem to get them added. Will sad them as...