We left early from the small town of Ventas de Naron and continued along the Camino de Santiago weaving it’s way through Galicia.

There was an absence of coffee stops for most of the morning and a caffeine-deprived hungry pilgrim version of myself was not in the best spirits.

My pilgrim gang ended up separating through most of the day but our organised accommodation guru Bill had already found us a 4-bed dorm for a snore-free sleep in Boente so we knew it wouldn’t be long until we were reunited.

I spent a lot of the day alone. Enjoying some solitude on what would be one of the last few days of my pilgrimage.

I came across all kinds of people including a man called Dimitri who had been walking all the way from Holland and a man walking with Camino backwards with his donkey. After being in the comfort of my new Camino friends the past few days I hadn’t been talking to quite as many strangers and it seemed to result in a day of interesting encounters.

Eventually I made it to the bigger town of Melide where I ran into my favourite friendly faces. James and Bill had been waiting to run into me there and had even saved me some pulpo knowing that I would be even happier to see them if they had food for me.

We set off again and soon enough my friends had gotten ahead of me and I walked alone through the beautiful forest between Melide and our resting town for the evening.

Eventually I made it to the small town and found James and Bill looking suspicious outside our albergue.

“How’s the albergue?”

“See for yourself…”

I entered the musky smelling front room of the house which had been transformed into a smelly cafe/bar.and was greeted by a friendly, yet strange, older couple.

I must admit it didn’t feel ‘cozy’ and the entire place had a ‘dusty’ feel about it and as I was led upstairs to our room I noticed that the couple were certainly avid collectors and cameras and nicknacks were packed tightly into long class cabinets.

The room itself was kind of like staying in someone else’s extremely old Grandma’s house and the bathrooms left a lot of comfort to be desired. But it was a place to sleep and it was kind of funny to see our accommodation king Bill look so uncomfortable there.

Our 4th pilgrim gang member had fallen even further behind than me that day so we all had a drink at a more ‘sanitary’ looking place up the road and waited for German Tom to join us.

Eventually we wee reunited and after Tom had been introduced to our eccentric home for the night we decided to dine next door – which luckily had a much cleaner looking eating area.

We went to bed that night hoping that day 25 on the Camino de Santiago wouldn’t be the day we got bed bugs…