I walked into town this morning for breakfast, as I finished it began to rain. It was dark and the street lights were reflecting off the wet streets.

I took an alternate path today that climbed into the mountains. The path immediately started to climb. It was steep but the rain stopped and the started peeking through the clouds. For just a few moments a rainbow appeared.

As I got higher I could look back and see backward two or three days. The sun rays were breaking through the clouds.

As I climbed I came up to a group of Canadians. They had been walking the camino since September 4 (I started on the 17th). They didn’t carry there bags but they were in there 70s. They moved fast. Very impressive.

The views were great and interspersed were great looking gardens. One was full of very large pumpkins.

The mountain trails were really nice.

Once the trail came back to the valley bottom it was nice but often was along a road (with very little traffic). I walked for a while with a South Korean guy. He’d been to Texas and his comment was there were lots of very big people. His take was there were too many donut shops. He said there are donut shops everywhere. He said more of these people needed to do the camino. Hilarious.

Down in the valley was interesting. Small villages, a river, farms….however above all of this the big high way crisscrosses in the sky. The speed life vs the slower camino life.

Martin (of Martin and Jane) had texted me about a nice albergue, so I headed that way. It was a great find. Small, only 13 beds and offered a vegetarian meal. There were only four of us at the meal. A wonderful pumpkin soup, two big toasts with humus, a salad, delicious desert and wine. The room, dinner and breakfast €15. A bargain.

High above the village was a very old church.

It’s funny yesterday I was at the albergue and didn’t know anyone. I had slipped back into a different pilgrim group. Today, I was at the bar and chatted with two pilgrims I’d passed on the road. At dinner there was Edward from Australia that I’ve chatted with occasionally, a woman I met last night and a young German girl truly looking for her way. It’s odd to connect so quickly with a new group but really nice.