No mist today. The mist has gone away. This means instead of it staying cool until midday, it stays cool until about 8 am. A hot day. We are in for a shock when we get home.

A long day, 30km, over six river valleys. Climb up a hill, across a ridge and down a hill, cross a little river, climb up a hill, across a ridge etc. All day. Very nice country though. A lot of shade from the trees. There is a lot of eucalyptus which was introduced for paper pulp and lumber. It thrives here, but their forests are relatively sterile with little bird life. There were also woodlands of birch, willows, ash and oak shading a large variety of ferns. At the rivers many people took the opportunity to cool their feet. The rivers weren’t quite big enough for swimming.

Since coming over the mountains at O Cebreiro there have been far fewer wild flowers. No poppies! We so miss the poppies. They had kept us company all the way from Roncesvalles. Now it is just dandelions, daisies, thistles, etc. The usual stuff alongside a well used path. We haven’t seen sun flowers at all. Probably too early for them.

We walked with the same group of teenagers for a while. They had fresh tee shirts today and are still full of energy. They are so friendly and they like to sing. Barbara wants to teach them the words to “The ants go marching one by one, hoorah, hoorah,” It’s all a bit hard to explain and translate.

And still lurking in the background is the big blue bus. It is here at the hotel again tonight. The guide is a big guy with a pot belly but quite young. He likes to strut around as if he owns the Camino. Maybe he works in the off season at Oktoberfest.

Just two more stamps to get for our passports. Today, by paying a euro, we also got a blob of red wax with the impression of two feet stamped in it. We are now not sure if this was a good idea as it looks so different to all the other stamps. I also missed getting a photo of the wax being melted onto the passport. Oh well, I’m not going back.

Since we entered Galicia there have been white obelisks about a metre tall, with the distance to Santiago on them. Their location is completely random. Sometimes within fifty metres of each other and sometimes nothing for several kilometres. The distance given is down to a metre eg 143.864. The figure is never rounded off to five or ten. Weird or what!

Every little village church has a story or legend. This one was from the church of Santa Maria at Lobreiro, which we passed today:

A heavenly odour and, at night, a shining light emanated from a nearby fountain. Villagers dug up an image of the Virgin there and placed it on the altar of their church, but the next day could not find the image, for it had returned to the fountain. This happened for several days, until the villagers carved a tympanum for the church entrance and dedicated the church to her. At this point the image remained calmly on the altar. This Virgin, with the lovely smile of someone who has gotten what she wants, is still in the church. In the 1960s some villagers believed that she returned to the fountain every night to comb her hair.

Theme tune for today (not on the Ipod):

The ants go marching one by one
Hoorah! Hoorah!
The ants go marching one by one
Hoorah! Hoorah!
The little one stops to suck his thumb
And they all go marching down into the ground
To get out of the rain
Boom, boom, boom, boom!