Day 38 - Lago to Cee

Lago → Cee
Distance: 15.9 miles / 25.7km
Elevation: +1351ft, -2437ft

I woke up at around 3:30am this morning in the hostel, unable to sleep. It was obviously too early to get going, so I just laid there and played on my phone for awhile. Eventually, around 4am, Tovin swung his head down from his bunk - he had thought I kicked the underside of his bunk, our signal for if I am trying to get his attention. I had not, but it turned out that he hadn't been able to sleep either, and had been awake for a half hour or so too.

I am not really sure why I was having trouble sleeping, but he had a really bright light (I think from some wifi box or smoke detector) right above his bunk shining in his eyes, and also it just was a weird night. Tovin went and got a drink of water and walked around a little, being careful not to wake anyone else, and then came and sat near the head of my bunk, and played on his phone. Him being close must have settled whatever was keeping me awake, and I was able to sleep until around 7:30am then.

We both got up and ready for the day, and ended up being almost the last to leave. There were about 30 other people in the room with us, and only 3-4 were still getting ready when we left. It was going to be another long day today, so we tried to get going soon. I went and found the cat again from last night while Tovin finished getting ready, and then he came and found me after awhile and we got going. He was carrying my pack for me when he found me, and I wasn't feeling super great from the lack of sleep, so didn't try to stop him.

The morning wasn't too bad, except all the cow farms meant that everywhere we walked smelled like manure. Once we got a break from it for awhile, Tovin pulled a fresh croissant from his bag that he had gotten somewhere while I was petting the cat, which was a nice breakfast. We walked a few kilometers to the first town, where we stopped and each got a café con leche, had an orange Tovin also had in his bag, and then got going again. The views this morning were really beautiful, and even if we weren't super happy about all the elevation and the hills, we really enjoyed the sights.

At one point, we came across this really pretty stream, and so we both stopped and took off our shoes and socks, and dipped our feet in. It was pretty cold, but we sat together and enjoyed it and Tovin had a twix candy bar in his pack from somewhere that we shared together. We had to be strategic about our stops, as we were going 25 kilometers today - the first 15 or so had plenty of towns, cafés, and places to rest. But the last 15 had absolutely nothing. We decided to stop at the very last restaurant before the long stretch, which we were kind of worried about because the Google reviews were very mixed.

It ended up being a really great stop though, the owner was a very blunt but kind woman who had a no-nonsense air about her, and she had so many cats! Tovin and I each got a bocadillo, his with chorizo and cheese, mine with tortilla and cheese, and then a bag of chips and a Coca-Cola. Tovin has been a real sucker for sweets recently, but it was nice to have a cold drink. The cats hung out with us while we ate, and we gave them some little pieces of meat, which they really liked. One of them especially reminded me of Pippin, and was such a little stinker.

Finally after we used the bathroom, we had to leave and start the long stretch. There was A LOT of up and down elevation today, which we were really unhappy about. It got pretty hot and was sunny, so our next stop was at this statue called Vákner, a local legend about a werewolf in the region that pilgrims used to have to face on their way to the ocean. The statue was about 12 feet high, and there was also a tourism center that talked about it which was interesting.

After leaving the Vákner statue, we faced our final and most difficult 10km. It was very hot, sunny, and there was a lot of uphill, especially on rocky gravel paths. While we both love our barefoot shoes, they aren't the greatest for this kind of walking, and our feet hurt really badly. We only stopped to rest once along this 10km, and then finally got to what we had been calling "the big downhill" which was the final 2km into Cee, and a descent of nearly 1500ft of elevation very rapidly.

While walking down this section, we ran into Luis, someone I had met almost two weeks ago, who many people called the "Shaman" - he and his friend were hiking back to Santiago from Fisterra after having spent a few days there. We caught up briefly, and he said hi to Tovin, recognizing him as "the man with the cats on Anna's phone!" He also gave us both hugs, which were not quite as deeply appreciated, as he was completely soaked with sweat. It was about 3pm at this point, and him and his friend still had about 20km to go, so I am sure they will be walking very late into the evening.

Finally, we made it down the hill into Cee. It was really cool seeing the ocean come into view, although we had glimpses of it so far as we walked, but to see the town and harbor was really special, knowing that I had walked over 500 miles to get here, across all of Spain. We took a shortcut to get to our hostel, and then got checked in. They had put us in a room on the first floor right next to the office, but we had to go downstairs to the ground floor to get to the showers and bathroom which was a little inconvenient. We both showered, and then Tovin did laundry and hung it out to dry while I spent some time relaxing and unwinding from the day. Tovin had carried my pack the entire 25 kilometers today which I was very grateful for, and then still had the energy to do laundry and rub my feet with lotion afterwards! I have felt very grateful to have him back with me again.

After Tovin finished laundry, we ended up taking a nap together as we hadn't slept very well, and then once we got up, Tovin had found us a place for supper nearby. We walked along the ocean (the harbor is facing south into the Atlantic Ocean) and then got to the restaurant. It was run by a mother - daughter pair, where the mother cooked and the daughter served and hosted. She sat us at a very nice table inside and we both ended up ordering off the pilgrim menu. I think Tovin had wanted something else, but she didn't give us an option. We had a bottle of wine, and then some sort of wine based cocktail of her own creation, then bread, salad, pumpkin soup, chicken, fish, fries, and then for desert, carrot cake, a coffee based cream cake, green tea, and some sort of spiked café con leche that she promised would help us sleep.

Despite it just being Tovin and I (and one other lady at another table), it was one of the most fun suppers that I have had my entire trip. She was so fun to talk to, and kept bringing us things that she invented, and then when the other lady eating there (A Vietnamese yoga teacher living in London) didn't speak Spanish, she asked me to come over and interpret for her. Everything was very good, and then she only ended up charging us €26 which we agreed was much more than fair. We said goodbye, and agreed it was a wonderful supper experience.

We went for a walk along the beach and just had a really great time as it was dark and the lights looked really pretty along the harbor. We waded into the ocean a little, and also drew some hearts in the sand, and then sat and looked at the scenery and talked for awhile before going back to the hostel. We both got ready for bed, and then I played on my phone a bit while Tovin did some cleaning and also looked at the photos from the day, and then we both went to bed.