Eleventh Phase: Melide to Salceda 24,72 KM

Thursday, June 5th, 2014

Since it was a short day in front of us, (originally we had planned to stay in Arzua, so it was only 15 kilometers), we decided to leave the hotel at 7.

The taxi was there punctual to pick us up and drop us back in Melide. We started walking exactly where we took the taxi.

The first impressions on the french path were different, we found a little kiosk with warm coffee, fruit, stamps; you could buy what you wanted and drop the money in a box.

50 Km to Santiago!

It was not as early as usual for us but there were many people already on the road.  The path was different from the primitivo but still beautiful, the going was smooth until we found an uphill that our guide forgot to mention just before Castaneda... we were not prepared for that one and since I was sick with my ear infection it felt like twice as difficult. I was going very slow and a couple from Switzerland offered to help until the end, I was grateful because I could hear my blood running in my ear.

We had breakfast after the uphill, there was a coffee very strategically positioned, that became full after some minutes.

Castaneda has a beautiful bridge where we made a short stop to drop stones into the river with Emilia, and smell the flowers like my mom always wanted.

We arrived to Arzua so fast that we were not sure about staying there, it was only noon. We talked to our Australian friends and they gave us a number of an albergue in Salceda. We discussed about it and we thought it was a very good idea to try to do more kilometers since we were feeling good.

This bridge was a challenge with the stroller

The original plan was to do 20 kilometers on Saturday from Rua to Santiago, so we thought about starting walking at 4 am to be on time for the mass in Santiago.  So we made our minds, had lunch and continued our path to Salceda.

About 3 kilometers before Salceda my husband went ahead of us because it started to rain and Emilia would wake up soon.
Those last kilometers took hours... between the rain and the accumulated tiredness... I was hoping for my mom to call for help so I could say I had to stay with her... but I kept asking and she kept answering that she would reach the albergue so I took it as a motivation to keep on going.

We got to the Albergue, the place was very nice, it had private rooms for 3 people each, but the bathroom was downstairs.... and since we were not able to control our legs anymore going to the bathroom was out of the question ;)

I was not feeling well about my ear and Emilia was full of energy from the nap so me and my mom were lying in our beds.  Emilia was jumping from one bed to the other until my mom starts screaming,... help, help.... I ask what is wrong and Emilia answered that she didn't make it to the bathroom... ohhh noooo. That meant going to the bathroom, cleaning everything... so I started crying and calling my husband, (he was downstairs washing the clothes and signing in). He came as soon as he could and we started laughing.

We went to eat to a very nice restaurant just next to the albergue and we called it a night.

Log of the day:

07h30 - 09h00 - Walk to Castaneda
09h00 - 09h45 - Breakfast pause
09h45 - 13h30 - Walk to Arzua
13h30 - 14h30 - Lunch pause at Arzua
14h30 - 18h00 - Walk to Salceda

Hotel we stayed in Salceda:
Albergue Belboni, very good equiped, didn't have a restaurant but there was one very near by - on the camino

Next stop near Monte de Gozo....