The Big Walk

Galician rains - Day 3

After the oppressive heat of yesterday afternoon and with another twenty mile epic ahead of us, we decide to get up at dawn, rummaging around for our gear in the still-dark pilgrim refugio to be rewarded with a pink sunrise over the hills as we set off. The pilgrim route is well marked with yellow arrows painted on rocks, walls and trees but only for people coming in the other direction, which means that we get lost and have to retrace our steps several times. There are no decent maps in Spain away from the popular mountain areas - we have only a roadmap to use until we get to the Pyrenees- so the only sign we’ve gone wrong is when we reach a junction with no arrows. Everywhere are horreos – long, narrow stone barns that come in all sizes, but stand off the ground on mushroom shaped stilts. Most are topped by roughly carved stone crosses. They keep the grain dry and safe from damp in the wet Galician climate. The other feature common to every village is the lavaderia or washing area, many of them full of women scrubbing their bags of clothes by hand. It seems washing machines haven’t yet reached Galicia, but watching the women suggests that in any case they’d deny a key social occasion.

It begins to drizzle, slowly turning into a real downpour. This provides the incentive we need to finally overcome our nervousness and start going into the locals’ bars in the villages for shelter and coffee. They are filled with chattering old men sipping cognac, but the intimidating air is soon dispelled as we find how friendly everyone is. There’s a guy in one who used to work in London – he’s delighted to get a chance to practice his English as so few Brits pass this way. Back outside I ask a woman for onward directions and she fiercely barks them back at me before knocking on her friend’s door. When her friend answers she shouts just as loudly at her so I assume no offence was intended.

We’re saturated by the time we reach Negreira, a larger town again full of protest flags. The wet weather has meant we haven’t been able to wash and dry our clothes in the lavaderias, so we rent a cheap room to dry out our gear. Once recovered, we go for a proper meal at last – surely the first of many paellas to come. We may have mastered the phrase, but we couldn’t really survive on giant cheese baguettes.