• Wednesday 15th October, 2014

• Salceda: Pousada de Salceda, €30 (private room and bathroom)

I haven’t had an appetite since last Friday when I started to get sick but I knew I needed to eat now that I was walking again so I tried to have some dinner last night… And then I was up all night with the lingering “issue!” When my alarm went off at 7:30am, it felt like I had only just gone to sleep so I decided to try to sleep some more… And hoped and prayed that I would be able to walk and not have to stay in Melide another night (nothing against Melide, I just want to get to Santiago!)

I asked the receptionist at the hotel if he knew of any hostels/pensions approx 25km from Melide (there wasn’t anything in my guide and I still need a private room unfortunately) and he mentioned the Pousada Salcede. Perfect. I rang and made a reservation but told them I would be quite late because after trying to rest in the morning, I didn’t leave Melide until midday… In the rain!

I knew it was forecast to rain, it’s forecast to rain every day for the next week! In fact, everyday except one since I crossed the border into Galicia it has rained… I wonder if Galicia gets more rain than the UK and Vancouver??

Rainy day

I had memorised where every bar (read toilet!) was between Melide and Salcede and was asking myself what I had done to make Santiago angry enough to turn this into such a challenging walk for me? The beginning with the mountains was the tough part, this was supposed to be a walk in the park into Santiago… Not taking up precious memory space memorizing the exact location of toilets along a 27km trail!

Someone has written “You shall not pass” and this is kind of how I’m feeling!

Today was again through beautiful forest, interspersed with a small amount of road walking. I would have loved to have taken dozens of photos but the rain only relented for 5 minutes during the course of the whole day… So I don’t have many to show… It was also much busier with pilgrims now that I’ve joined the Camino Frances. I probably passed at least 40 people, each time with a chorus of, “Hola, buen camino.”

I arrived at Pousada Salceda around 6:15pm and had a lovely warm welcome. There was no need to get out my i.d or pilgrim passport straight away, instead I was told to go and relax and have a nice warm shower and come down for dinner whenever I was ready 🙂 The room is modern and lovely, it’s a converted old stone building and very tastefully done. I would never have stayed here had I not been still feeling unwell and wanting a private room, so there’s a silver lining… This place is a gem! There’s also a private Albergue attached and when I went across to the restaurant for dinner it was full with pilgrims talking about their last night on the camino before reaching Santiago… We’re about 27km away…

Pousada de Salceda

Pousada de Salceda

Pousada de Salceda

Day 15, Melide to Salceda

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