Day 21 To Agueda

To Santiago de Compostela: 321.7

Walked today: 26.4 km

Total walked: 358.5 km

Very tired. That's how I finished the day yesterday.  So this morning we got up late so we could have the hotel breakfast at 7:30 am. Then, still feeling lazy we called a taxi to take us 6 km ahead - just a little cheat - of course the taxi left us off the Camino so it took us an hour to find ourselves following the yellow arrows and the shells.

Today the trail was not as nice, it was a hot day and pretty well all day was on asphalt which tends to get very hot and my feet suffered.  I truly have now blisters on my blisters. I missed the eucalyptus forests of previous days.

When we got to Sao Joao de Azenha, we decided to visit the church.  Today is Sunday and while we thought we were going to miss mass at least we could say hello to Our Lord Jesus.  Well, we found ourselves in a mass in progress and while we were there just for a small part, we did have a chance to receive holy communion

We did see a lot of pilgrims today.  We saw again our French friends Daniel and Chantal and we met a young German, Reinhardt while we were walking.

When we arrived to our destination, after our shower we had two options for supper. The hostel could order pizza for us or we could walk a couple of kilometres to McDonald's so McDonald's it was.  It was a nice dinner, this time we really need the fats and the carbs.  Brenda's app says we are burning over 5000 calories a day. So bring on the Big Macs.

When we returned to the albergue, we went to the yard to join the pilgrims. A nice crowd, a good crowd. Kristen from Holland is here, it was really nice to see her again. Tom and Reinhardt from Germany, Daniel and Chantal from France, Scott from Canada, Laura and Tom from the UK, Kate from Australia.  It was great hanging out with them.

We also had a chance to talk to all of our sons. We used skype to call them. Since it is Sunday we caught all of them at home.  We been gone for three weeks and we miss them.

And now to bed. Tomorrow up again at 5 am to start walking before the heat arrives.

The pictures from today:

This church is a classic Portuguese, covered completely with tiles.

Here we are coming down to a river and in the other side the town of Agueda can be seen. We thought we were there but we still had a couple of kilometres up the hill.

Here we are crossing the river to get into the town

And finally going up the hill, up and up to get to the albergue

Today is the day of Pentecost so we pray to the Holy Spirit asking for his protection.