Day 27 - 18.8km - Vilei to Portomarin

Well I think I will be looking at puppies when I get home. I miss having a dog in the house and the last few days have really brought home the companionship of having a dog.

That's because we keep meeting Ada and Sasha, two Australian Sheepdogs, and James the ginger Irishman. They started further in France than we did, are walking to Santiago, then Fisterra and Muxia, then all the way back again. When we finish in three days, they will be only a third of the way into the journey.

We first met them at Alto de Poio looking out over the mountains, and have walked with them a number of times since. Having the dogs pottering along is something else.

We left Vilei and the lovely accomodation there to head back to bunk beds for a few days. The walk was following the familiar Galacian pathways of road, wooded tracks and seemed to be almost always a slow and gradual uphill.

It was an unremarkable walk, made better by an hour's "lunch break" with Ada, Sasha and James with bacon and eggs and a wonderful view.

The walks seem to be blurring now and verbs and nouns are running dry to describe them. We seem to be walking faster and getting the miles under our belt as we tick down, passed the 100km to go mark!

We arrived in Portomarin early at around 12 and checked in to our bunks. In the middle of a room with 24 beds.

Our now old friend Vince is just behind us and arriving so we moved out onto the terrace watching pilgrims climb the final little hill into the town. The beers are cold and fresh and the company is good.

Vince arrived along with Martin (who is from the Netherlands and owns High Times magazines best coffee shop outside of Amsterdam, and once shared a couple of joints with Grace Jones at a concert!!), Sandra , a nursery school teacher from Germany.

Sandra has a private room with a terrace and so to save money we did a supermarket run, splashing the cash on 1.20e bottles of wine. We are sat here drinking with two very loud Americans and Godfrey the Frenchman has just arrived with a very dour German chap called Dirk.

The wine and beer is flowing and we are heading for pizza soon.

Enjoy the company pilgrims! We are all walking into Santiago together this week!!