Day 17: Portomarin to Palas De Rei 25km

Our walk today was shortish but up and down a series of valleys made it a little challenging. However, we were in Palas De Rei by 1 ish, with again, no new blisters. Palas De Rei is fairly forgettable - its name makes it sound better than it is. After an initial hiccup we found a very nice, small, spotlessly clean, albergue. That's the good news - the bad news is that most of the other occupants of our 8 bed dorm are French, and they are hard going. It is not particular to this group (who we tried to engage with, unsuccessfuly) but, with a couple of notable exceptions, the French on the Camino are an aloof lot. This is coming from a pair of Francophiles who have holidayed in France for 20 years.

The Camino or Oxford St.?

While we're being a bit negative, we'll continue in the same vein. Others had told us yesterday evening that the Camino had been busy yesterday. Today, we saw it for ourselves because we were on the road a little later. Lots of people join the Camino at Sarria and walk the last 100km - we have no problem with this as it is what people want to do. But the effect is quite dramatic. On the Camino from St Jean to Sarria, you can occasionally get a cluster of people (say 6 or 8) at one point due to circumstances, but people are generally in ones or twos and spaced from each other by, maybe, 200 metres. Post Sarria is very different in that there is a constant trail of people - you no longer feel you are out on an isolated country walk, but more on a busy city street. At one spot today, we counted 23 people in the 100 metres ahead of us. Perhaps we exaggerate too much, but it is a different Camino. Another strange thing we noticed today was that for the last 10km out from Palas, there was a constant flow of taxis along by the walkers. Don't know why - are walkers taking a 'short cut', hope not!

Hydrangeas (and local taxi numbers) near Palas

One thing we have noticed as we walked through the hamlets for the past few days, were the dogs. Perhaps 90% of them are Alsatians, and very few of them are tied up. Loose Alsatians would not normally be our idea of fun. However, these dogs are extremely docile. What's more, the farmers use them extensively for driving the cattle in for milking - they are the equivalent of a sheep dog - we have seen this. Perhaps their other name, German Shepard, is more appropriate here. We have also noticed funny little buildings in farmyards (see photo below) - they are Grain Stores or Horreos. They are used to protectively store and ripen grain, usually corn.

Horreros in a farmyard

Anyway, we are really close now. Three more days walking and we are at Santiago De Compostela. Now to try to cheer up the French!!