stopping off

Our hotel stay yesterday didn't include breakfast so we packed up, left and started walking. After almost 4 miles we turned inland and visited this little cafe before turning back to the coast and carrying on. Most of the paths were on boardwalks again, at least to begin with, which made for easy wayfinding and was a bit easier on the feet than roads.

We saw fewer pilgrims today - the route we are on is not the most popular one - and those we did meet didn't seem very friendly. Having watched the film "The Way" with Martin Sheen, I had expected all the pilgrims we met to be like a merry band, walking alongside each other and enjoying conversation and meals together. We have chatted briefly to a few, but sometimes it is either a quick "bon camino" or (as happened today), a pair of women overtook us and wouldn't even look us in the eye. Very strange.

We had only walked 12 miles today before arriving at our destination at Ofir, near Esposende. It's an area of sand dunes and pine forests just south of the Cávado River. Our hotel has a very 70s vibe and also an outdoor pool, which the lady on reception thought we might like to use. I was more excited by the bath, however! I had a lovely hot soak and then washed most of my clothes and dried them on the balcony. Since we are carrying all our stuff for 6 weeks, we have very few clothes and they need washing quite often if we are to be in polite society. We have each brought one light dress, which we change into in the evenings...since we are in a different place every night, no-one knows that we are always wearing the same outfit!

Tonight we went out to eat at a cafe by the beach, and afterwards watched the surfers trying to ride the huge waves. Sarah wants to go to surf school :-)