November 14, 2017, Day 19

I slept like a stone until 9:00.
The night before I looked my guide-book through again, and found that if I won't start walking today again, it will be really difficult to get to santiago - and from there to Porto - on time. But I decided that I will see how I feel in the morning, and walk or not walk.
And I slept until 9:00 like a stone.
Then I got out of bed, took a shower, and realised I felt quite good. Actually good enough to go.
I sat down with the book, checked on daily sections, and drafted a 6-day plan, every day a little less than 25 km. Not so bad at all.
Marti had still quite some pain in her hips, but as she has 36 hours more until her flight back than I have, we agreed that from here on we split up, and try to get the most out of our remaining time.

So I made myself ready, we got a breakfast together, I went to cash money, and left Sarria at 11:00. The weather was perfect, nice warm, no wind, no fog, just really perfect.

My plan was to get to Portomarin, but I decided I only went so far as my body was OK with - I also checked that there were some villages where no accommodation had open anymore, but there were still enough places between Sarria and Portomarin to spend the night.

Just after Portomarin the Camino went through the woods - but these were so much nicer than the woods before La Faba.

Or maybe I was just so happy to be going again, that I enjoyed them better. Soon I also caught up with some pilgrims, even though I though today I would be walking alone as I left so late from Portomarin.

And there were so many familiar faces!
Before I realised, I was already at km 100 - so good to see that there are only 100 more km to go until Santiago! At the km100 stone (as it later turned out there are about 5 of them) there is a bar, and after walking 15 km I felt like taking a break.

I met a nice Dutch couple here I they also staid at our hostel in Sarria, and a British guy I thought I would never see again (long hair, missing front teeth, walking from bar to the next bar, but nice and funny), and the man who scared us about a week ago while we were going with Marti.

As it turned out, he is from South Africa, and he has a weird backpack - the backpack belonged to his father, who passed away 2 years ago, and who always wanted to go the Camino, but never got to do it. So now his son is doing that for him with his father's backpack. The backpack is a day-backpack, made of canvas, with thin leather shoulder-strips, and he is really suffering from it (apart from not being able to carry anything in the small backpack), but he has decided to go with this backpack, so he will do it.
So easy to project false ideas!
From here it was easy to find the way almost until Portomarin. In the last village before Portomarin two British woman were coming up to me - they lost the way and we're running in circles. We took out phones and books, but before we could check where we were and where we needed to go, a third British woman was coming to us - she lived there in the village, came just out to do her evening walk, and explained us where we needed to go. I really start to believe in small miracles on this camino!

Portomarin was only a 30-minute walk from here. And what greeted me at the city, was this ca 100m high bridge.

I really am afraid of heights. I was standing at the bridge, and had to collect all my strength to start walking across the bridge. But eventing I managed to walk through - but afterwards was only able to go to the nearest hostel.
As it turned out I was the only guest here, which was a good feeling. I had a nice dinner at the restaurant above the hostel,

then updated my blog, and wanted to go to sleep - at that time some staff meeting in the restaurant above my room started with pushing chairs around. Finally around 12:30 I could sleep - and at 7:00 in the morning the chair-pushing started again, this time is was the cleaning lady.
But it was anyway time to start the second walking day after the long break!