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Day 26 – El Camino – Barbadelo to Gonzar

Barbadelo to Gonzar, hungover walks are a thing on the Camino. But mostly practised by Aussies and/or/with Americans. *le sigh* When you’ve got to walk further than from your bed to the bathroom, buen Camino.

26.1km
~6 hours
3X water purification; 1X ibuprofen tablet given to a fellow pilgrim
cold in the early morning; partly cloudy and cool mid morning; sunny and warm midday; super sunny and super hot afternoon
19€50
– Albergue: 10€

We were already familiar with the first 500m of the way, since we had passed through to the next town for dinner the night before.

By the book, Portomarín was at the end of the section for that day. We made this out first stop, eighteen kilometers from the day’s starting point.

Along the way we passed a milestone marking 100km to Santiago.

Many pilgrims start their pilgrimage from Sarria (8km before Barbadelo), in order to walk the bare minimum (100km) for the Compostella certificate. We certainly got our first taste of ‘busy’ on the Camino, we must have passed at least 200 pilgrims in the first hour, and they were consistently spread over the next 20km.

For some parts of the way, we shared the road with cows and sheep.

We arrived at Portomarín in excellent time, covering a distance of 18km in under three hours. Here is a shot of the first bridge.

As we left town in the direction of our destination village, we crossed another bridge. However, Matt and I decided to take the narrow and rusty bridge as a thrill.

Each step caused the (rusty) steel plate beneath our feet to flex and wobble. It must have only been 2 minutes to cross, but it was agonisingly thrilling.

We continued some time to Gonzar and arrived mid afternoon. We showered and napped, before dining at the bar for a ‘Plato combinado’. I got the steak, chips and salad and added two huevos Fritos so that it resembled my meal of a few days ago – the one Matt missed out on.

Finally, we announced to Aaron that we’d treat ourselves to a trip to Portugal after the Camino. He didn’t seem to excited by the idea, but I’m sure he will come around to it.

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