Missy - Day 6 (Arzua to O Rua)

 

This was a nasty blow. 

Before you are the remains of Kiernan’s pilgrims passport. 

Last night it got washed and aggressively spun dry. 

When Chris handed them to me he said he thought it might be bread. We laughed because Kiernan would totally have bread in his pocket. 

Poor Kiernan. He was very upset. I was also very upset. 

We did some googling mom made some calls. It’s possible if we present it plus a new one he can still get official credit. 

We hadn’t seen anyone selling pilgrim passports the entire time since Sarria. 

I bought a little notebook from the waitress at a pasty place for him to at least get some more stamps. 

So much boo. 

So with heavy hearts and aching head off we set for our longest mileage day. 

In one of those Camino miracles you read about, we walked up to our first bar stop to find they were selling pilgrims passports. I have not seen any since and hadn’t seen any before. 

We pet cute dogs and had some breakfast and felt a bit better about the day. 

I had some great successes today. I ordered my first custom sandwich and it worked. I found a bocadillo that is way more like a sub for Kiernan. 

We saw a large European Stag beetle. 

We tried more kinds of ice cream. 

We had a bad turn with the heat. Kiernan got light headed and very hot. 

We stopped at a bar and they filled his water bag with cold water and ice. 

He put his head down on the cold water and ice and I put a cold wet napkin on his neck and made him put his hair up. 

We walked on. 

We took more breaks. 

We felt more cheerful. 

A lot of the woods in the last few days have been comercial lumber. The vast majority of those are eucalyptus. 

They have these cool gum nuts. They look a little like acorns with crosses. 

They are planted in rows like most cash crops. They give good shade and they smell nice, though safely not like Vicks. 

I’ve been using my Seek app (it identifies plants) quite a lot. 

This is sheep bit. 

This one is purple foxglove. 

This is a road sign to Santiago. 

That was pretty exciting to see. 

We made it to O Rua near 5 pm. There was a nice cold fountain for pilgrims and our dreaded dormitory turns out to be great. 

We have a private 6 person room with a private bathroom and the hostess is very kind. 

It’s going to rain all day tomorrow. 

Good thing we brought the rain gear. 

So far so good.