Day 20, Day 13 on the Camino
On to Silleda, 28 km, 17.4 miles. Out the door with headlamps on at 6:45 after a scrambled egg breakfast. There was a forest fire somewhere and the strong smell was a little strangling at first – until the smell of cow patties took over!!! The morning was like a stroll in the park – through lush forests and pastures. Though there were still enough hills that had me muttering expletives under my breath – getting rather tired of them, literally. We stopped to drink coffee at the A Ponte Cafe in Lalin at 3 hours in, another coffee stop at some cow farm another hour later (which evidently turned out that it was a saving grace I didn’t get my order in) and again in A Laxe @ Bar Restaurante Ma Jose’ for food (I had an empanada atune) and some delicious local white wine.

Fueled by vino blanco, we made our way up and down more wooded trails and through more cow and horse pastures. We also passed by many chickens, a couple of billy goats, a bunny  and a burrow!

At last we arrived at our very beautiful albergue, which touted a swimming pool (not open, sorely disappointing to some who were motivated by a “dip” to keep trekking today), “laundry facilities” (it was just a sink like the other basic albergues – not the hoped for washing machine we saw a couple of times in our first week on the Camino) and reservations for groups – which we did take advantage of! There are 8 of us, 10 beds and sure enough the last two filled! Albergue Turistico Trasfontao did have a mega big hot water tank though, so everyone was able to enjoy a long, hot shower!! The place was new in 2015 so quite modern and we enjoyed the sunny, spacious patio surrounded by flowers. Unfortunately we were a distance from town so ended up ordering pizza delivered…

Tomorrow is our last full day of walking!!! Two day from now we will arrive in Santiago de Compostela!