I woke up with a sore head and it took me a moment to remember why.

Gin.

I quickly remembered the fun night before and started my day with a smile. I was once again in the same room as the crazy screaming German but this time I was pretty happy about it.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOM”

I got a groan as a response.

I started getting ready for the day and eventually was joined by James. Eventually the birthday boy emerged.

James and I had already packed our bags up and were enjoying some morning snacks while we watched Tom prepare himself…

It almost seemed like a show in itself.

After going through some exercises Tom decided to remove the entire contents of his bag and carefully began folding up his clothing and packing everything back in. It was a painfully slow procedure but hey, he was the birthday boy after all so who was I to complain.

Just when it seemed as though he was almost ready he sat on the ground and started stretching.

“OK Tom see you later, we will meet you at the nearest open cafe for coffee”.

Even for birthday boys my patience could only last so long.

So James and I headed off. It was a very cold and overcast morning in contrast to most days on the Camino de Santiago and we followed the ongoing highway leading up into the upcoming mountains.

The nearest cafe turned out to be a lot further away than I had expected but eventually we found a welcoming place that was filled with pilgrims enjoying pre-sunrise breakfast time.

We enjoyed a leisurely slow break as we kept an eye out for Tom, who we desperately hoped had finished his morning routine by now.

Eventually he appeared and after a few rounds of Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday to You”, we were all in a great mood and almost ready to head back out.

In came Bill, our Danish photographer from the day before. We were all getting our bags ready for the rainy weather (AKA wrapping them up in the condom-like waterproof covers) and I started low-key bragging about how light my bag was.

“Go on, pick it up.”

Bill picked up the bag and seemed completely unimpressed.

“Pick up mine.”

Bill was basically carrying a bag filled with simply air.

Apparently he had invested in every form of lightweight hiking technology that existed on planet earth.

My bag felt a lot heavier that day.

We headed back out into the rainy weather an prepared ourselves for the climb ahead. We were making our way up to the town of O’Cebreiro, which featured the steepest climb of the entire 780km pilgrimage.

We stopped for another coffee in the town just before the steepness started to give us a decent caffeine hit.

The man behind the counter joked about putting some hard liquor in our coffee’s to get us going up the hill.

Apparently he wasn’t joking and my coffee certainly woke me up.

Then it began. It was immediately painful. We walked for about 20 minutes before a car drove past and slowed to a stop in front of us.

“You can’t walk this way!”

“What?”

“You took a wrong turn!”

I take absolutely no responsibility for this mistake and still hold a grudge against the certain pilgrim who decided to make us all work extra hard on one of the already hardest Camino de Santiago days.

We descended back down the hill and followed the clearly yellow-arrow marked Camino de Santiago path.

The day was tough and I was glad to be in good company during for this day.

My hungover had quickly disappeared and as we got higher and higher up the mountain so did the lingering clouds.

Any fear that we would not be rewarded with an incredible view soon disappeared and before we knew it we were crossing the milestone into Galicia and reaching the peak of the days mountain.

We celebrated with lunch outside a nice little restaurant in O’Cebreiro. Galicia was famous for serving up some fine pulpo so I ordered a plate of it and indulged on the poor little octopus.

We decided to continue walking that afternoon as O’Cebreiro seemed extremely touristy and we had no dire to spend the night in a town that sold ‘pilgrim wooden hiking poles’ as souvenirs.

So on we went.

The afternoon actually turned out to get very hot and the unexpected mountains we continued to climb quickly made us a tired gang of pilgrims.

We stopped for a drink after a particularly tough climb where I charmed a group of older Dutch cycling pilgrims and determined to check into an albergue soon we walked another stretch of the Camino on to the town of Hospital de la Condesa.

This town was a particularly miniature Camino de Santiago town and other than our albergue there was only one other small bar in town.

The albergue itself was gorgeous and seemed more of an alpine ski lodge than an albergue.

We paid for our beds and were taken to a room right at the back where we found a couple of older pilgrims… One with a portable ventilator machine…

After all of our long conversations about sharing rooms with snorers (including one story where James physically assaulted a particularly serious snorer with his pillow) seeing the machine made me want to burst out laughing. Of course it wasn’t funny that the poor man needed assistance with breathing and you have to rally respect a guy for doing a freakin’ pilgrimage with a ventilator. But the look on James’ face made it hard not to giggle.

Breathing troubled roomies aside the albergue was lovely and after we had all washed the sweat from every crevice of our bodies we joined the crowd of pilgrims outside relaxing with drinks in the afternoon sun admiring the local cows storm past.

Eventually it was dinner time. As the town was so tiny the entire albergue had a communal dinner in a small hut not far away from the house. With two long tables it was the best communal dinner I had been apart of on the entire camino – with the added bonus of it being Tom’s birthday the atmosphere was lively and we all had a bit too much fun.

After three delicious courses and a big round of ‘Happy Birthday’ we were ready to really celebrate with some after dinner drinks.

We headed downtown (well to the only other establishment in the entire town) and drank until our exhausted little pilgrim selves were ready to crash.

My lone wolf pilgrim days were over. I had found my Camino de Santiago people.