I wandered lonely as a cloud

Knowing that it didn't get light until 7.30, I decided to get up a little later on Tuesday. I had a slice of Spanish omelette and Bruno wished me well with 'good trip, good trip'. I walked onto the main road and began my 20km ascent in the hard shoulder. There was some good news; this road was much quieter than the one going into Ponteareas. As I reached the towns outskirts I was approached by a couple of old men asking me if I was doing the Camino de Santiago. I explained in broken Spanish what I was doing; 'esta lejos para une chica!' they exclaimed. At around 10 o'clock there was a mild sense of peril as my gps cursor disappeared on my map but returned an hour later. Situated on one of the many false peaks I reached that day was a bus stop with a spring. As I went to drink a random man came and readjusted my rucksack for me, speaking unremittingly in soft Gallician so that I don't think it was odd at all. Later, at around 11.30, and this was worse false hope than all the false peaks combined, an old man told me that it would go down hill soon. At 2.30 I finally began to descend into the valley of A Caniza, stopping briefly for a sandwich so that my legs wouldn't seize up. I listened to some Dire Straits, thinking it would cheer me up, but at this point I felt so sorry for myself I somehow managed to translate Telegraph Rd as a microcosm for my own predicament. 5km before A Caniza I turned off the main road onto a snaking farm track. I foolhardly tried to zip straight down the mountain but I was soon confronted by waist deep brambles and had to do the walk of shame back up, which almost killed all my resolve, so that when a pink eyed mangy dog approached me I practically invited it to maul me just so it could all be over with. Just my luck that it was crippled and looked inbred to the point that it only had half a functioning brain. When I finally arrived in A Caniza I called Samantha, my host for the night, and jibajabbered down the phone. Samantha came and peeled me off the pavement and took me to her friends bar where I drowned my sorrows in a glass of coke. I taped up my feet and generally tried to collect my thoughts whilst the regulars looked at my route plan and tutted. My lips were so dry and burned the top one had turned yellow. Eddie, the brother of the bar owner, applauded my cause, saying I would see real Spain and how it was really like three countries. When it was time to go, Eddie took a picture for the bars Facebook page and everyone hugged and kissed me, which was pretty nice. I had completely forgotten that I wasn't supposed to have dinner at Samanthas but she made me eggs and vegetables anyway. We discussed what I should do, as my next stop Outomoro, was another mountain away, and I didn't think I could make it. I went to bed uncertain about both my options; either walk tomorrow and try and find a hostel before Outomoro or take a bus to Ourense, stay a night, and walk to Allariz the next day. In the end I decided to stay another night in A Caniza which felt right straight away. Post shower and salt bath my troubles felt halved and I slept like a baby.

A Pilgrims Progress

I woke up almost every hour before my alarm went off at 6.30, panicking that I had overslept. By 7 o'clock I was packed, with only one minor hiccup in that I had been trying to open my camelback by turning it clockwise, but Pedro, the brains of the operation, turned it anticlockwise and that worked a treat. I looked out the window and could see nothing. It was still pitch black. Slightly bewildered I decided to sit for another half an hour and forced myself to eat, even though I was feeling sick with nerves, until it got lighter. Navigation my way out of Vigo was not the nightmare I had envisaged. I walked straight up out of the town and it was relatively quite. I continued to walk up and up, through a village and wooded area until I came upon a sign which said 'Monte Faquina'. It was very pleasing that all that gradient had concluded in a mountain and I positively skipped through the Industrial park which populated the peak. I descended the mountain, through the many 'sleepy' villages, where I saw almost no one apart from women emptying their bins and dogs. There were vines growing in every garden, supported by the same sort of fences which surrounded the industrial park buildings, angled at the top with barbed wire so as to prevent intruders. Economic; yes, beautiful; no. At last I reached the bottom, where a small town clustered around a main road. Here I ate an orange and put on sun cream as the sun was high in the sky, quite the opposite from what I had prepared for; wet and grey Gallicia. I followed the main road towards a roundabout where I found my mapping app view ranger directing my to walk along the hard shoulder of a flyover. This made me feel quite sick, even though for the most part it was single lane traffic, as I had fantasised mountain tracks not tarmaced roads. I came to the small town of Dormelas which was shaded and beautiful, and I sat in the plaza whilst I charged my iPhone and ate a sandwich. This was more like it. Mothers and daughters openly arguing in the street, old men sat on benches together smoking....... I walked out of the town and once again found myself at the mercy of the hard shoulder. Three lanes worth of traffic rushed passed me, honking occasionally, and I began to climb my second mountain of the day, but I felt no relief at reaching the summit. Ponteareas still looked very far away and my bag felt very heavy. Where was this 'spiritual path' I was meant to be taking? It certainly wasn't on the hard shoulder. The road seemed to go on and on as I descended into Ponteareas, with endless scrubby looking suburbs and coca-cola signs in road bars telling me to stop and drink. I began to get angry with people who weren't even there, everyone who hadn't listened to me or given me false hope about things totally unrelated, they were the ones to blame. I could feel the sun in my head and my eyes were hot by the time I reached central Ponteareas. I still had not heard from Bruno, my next couch surfing host, Pedro's ex-girlfriends-best friend's-ex boyfriend. Galicia, the land of healthy break ups it would seem. I sat in the doorway of an apartment block, texting and trying to preserve my cellular data whilst desperately trying to get hold of Bruno. It was mid-afternoon and the thought of trying to find a room and communicating in Spanish was more than I could bear. At last I got a message on What's App from Bruno, apologising that he had not heard his phone. I texted him the street I was on and within ten minutes he arrived in a car driven by his friend. He dropped me at his apartment, which was literally a side street off of the road I had been waiting on for the past hour. Bruno gave me a set of keys, a towel and apologised prefusly for the lack of wifi and lights in his apartment, told me to make myself at home and that he would be back in the evening. I was so relieved that I didn't have to talk to anyone and I just sort of lay in the middle of the floor for half an hour, drinking out of the camelback which lay next to me and feeling the sun escaping my head. I had a long shower and then went down the road to buy sandwiches and oranges for the next day. It's funny but my appetite has actually diminished on this trip, I don't know wether it's stress or what, but I don't really get hungry. Cocacola on the other hand, just seems like the best idea. When I got back to the house I had a large glass and took one of Dora's Taiwan painkillers and got into bed to have a tiger sized cat nap. At 9 o'clock Bruno returned with a Spanish omelette and noodle soup from his parents house and we sat down together to watch the discovery channel, because it was the only English programme which wasn't dubbed. The tense music and the narrators dramatic detailing of the horrific solar storms and temperatures on the various stars didn't do much for my nerves so I asked Bruno about himself. He had been a mechanic for Citroen, but quit a few years ago to pursue his dream of running a indoor go-karting rink. Unfortunately, with the current economy, he had to close it down last year and so went travelling in Australia for 3 months. Pedro similarly was a trained pilot, but companies were taking advantage of the 50% unemployment of Spanish pilots, and charging extortionate prices for the pilots to get trained for particular planes. These were hard times for dreamers. 

I was in bed by midnight, shaking at the thought that I was going to have a similairly long walk the next day, but this time only on the main road. 

Contents of my rucksack

The Kit

Travel documents etc. passport, debit cards, insurance certificate, eu health card, euros, pilgrim passport

Bags; survival bag, new feel body wallet, orange and green Exped fold dry bag, drawstring day bag

North face fleece from Cotswold Outdoors

Tshirt: North face blue t-shirt and Helly Hansen pink polo - both sweat wicking

Base Layers: Teal Icebreaker Marino base layer, Rab uv  top, Helly Hansen dry base layer

Trousers: Ayacucho zip off walking trousers, Ayacucho walking shorts, North Face walking trousers

Food Equipment: Swiss Pen knife, plate/ extendable bowl/ chopping board, sports x 2 - all available from Cotswold Outdoors

Shoes: Berghaus walking boots (from CO) and New Balance trainers

Sleeping: Therm a Rest sleeping mat, Blacks Quad 2 sleeping bag, Trek mates sleeping bag liner

Underwear: Shock Absorber sports bras, M&S pants and bras, Ridgedale light walking socks, mono skin sports socks

First Aid: Water purifying tablets, antiseptic wipes, plasters various sizes, Delphi sun cream factor 50, allergy tablets, Dioralyte, antibacterial gel

Miscellaneous: seeing kit, She Pee, micro lite head torch, pen, Tangle Teezer, Collins Spanish Dictionary

Wash Kit: Travelon mesh bag, Neutrogena hand cream, Vaseline, Dylon travel wash, Sure Max deodorant, Lush 2 in 1 solid hair wash, Gillette razor, Original Source mint shower gel, Lifeventure micro towel, Dermalogica sun cream, Environ face wash, crappy tooth brush

North Face goretex, Marshalls gaitors, Berghaus pack-lite waterproof trousers (in bag)

Change of Weather Accesorise: Wedze ski gloves, Quechua peak cap, sunglasses, Summer Buff with UV protection, winter Buff

Tech: Anker battery portable charger, Kindle, IPad in Griffin Survivor case, (iPad, iPhone & kindle leads), adaptor, USB plug

Hydrate: Berghaus 750ml bottle, CamelBack 2l