Day 14 Samos to Palas de Rei

Day 14 Samos to Palas de Rei

38.69 (total 507.27)

The guide book warned that this was a day of constant up and down and was as hard as any days to date. And what a grand day it turned out to be. I was awake before 6:00 with a rumbling tum (being polite). I had also suffered some indigestion after turning in the night before. I was quite pleased that my bunk in the dorm was right next to the door to the “facilities”. Had I been at the other end of the dorm then I would have been moving at warp factor speeds to avoid disaster. The antidote was in my somewhat scant medical supplies so I popped a couple of Imodium capsules and kept my fingers crossed. We all went over the road for breakfast and another visit to the facilities meant popping another Imodium and more finger crossing. Needless to say I was not feeling great as we rolled out of Samos and I was laying the blame at a water fountain I had used to fill my water bottles on the climb up to O Cebreiro. We rode through Sarria and about 9 miles to Pacios before we stopped for coffee. I had a chocolate croissant and this later proved to be my entire food intake for the day.

Portomarin

Visits to the facilities were less frequent and I thought the problem was fixed just leaving me feeling quite drained, in many senses of that word. We rode on and through Portomarin at which point both Ricky and Chris mentioned that they too were not feeling grand. We were in terrain that could best be described as rolling, very rolling. The ascents were shortish but were bottom gear or thereabouts with short and fast descents between them. At this point there was very little but fields and woods, and people were visiting both the fields and the woods with increasing regularity. We realised that we had all eaten chicken the evening before and decided that this was the likely culprit. The Imodium I had left were shared out and we stopped by the aubergue at Gonzar at 1:00 for an hour or more so that Chris and Ricky could rest a while before we carried on. Stopping was not an option as the next Farmacia was a good twenty miles further on. After the rest period Ricky was quite ill, but this had the effect of making him feel better, and the Imodium was having some effect on Chris. We set off again, making very slow progress as we were all devoid of energy. We stopped again at the aptly named Hospital Alta de Cruz and a fellow pilgrim who had suffered similarly topped up our Imodium supplies. It took 2.5 hours to cover 10 miles.

And then my blister burst.

We made Palas de Rei about 5:30. Ironic that after cycling twenty miles to find a Farmacia there were two within 100 yards of each other. The whole town was on a descent and we missed the aubergues that our guide book said were there. At the bottom of the town was a small hotel so we headed for that. It cost us €70 for a three bed room but it was taken with gratitude. Everyone showered with Ricky and Chris falling straight into bed whilst I went and sorted out the payment for the room. We were all in bed by 7:30 and we all slept solidly until 6:30 next morning.

Very few photographs were taken this day.