I am listening to the repetitive sound of my clothes tumbling around in a dryer at a time at which on previous days I was terminating my walk. Remember when I said on day 0 that a whole month’s worth of rain came down from the skies. Well, today we can add a second month.

Café Castro opens at 5.30 in the morning. It was a bit before that when I heard the person in charge of morning shift  opening the café doors. A new day is beginning and I can hear that it’s raining outside. Not wanting to think about the day to come yet I turn around again and two hours later I step out of bed. Same procedure as every day;  putting my clothes into vacuum bags which go inside my backpack, rolling up my sleeping bag, gathering all of my other things, brushing my teeth and I am ready to go. Today of course with the breakfast at the café underneath my 4 bedroom apartment. Choice is limited at Café Castro but they have a croissant with ham and cheese and freshly squeezed orange juice. That will do. This morning I also see some women coming in and ordering a coffee. Most people don’t spend more than 5 minutes at the place at this time of day.

When it’s about 8.30 it’s time to face the rain. I have been looking at the weather forecast and it said something like: warning, heavy rain expected. Originally I had planned on walking about 25 kilometers today but the outlook of the rain and my right foot that is still hurting a bit make me hesitant. But for sure I want to get away from this town which does not consist out of a lot more than the café, the church in front of it and a gas station some 100 metres up the road. So I start to walk. The first arrow points right so I walk in that direction. After some hundred meters i see a yellow cross indicating that you are walking in the wrong direction. That’s a first timer. But I don’t have to search long to be on the right track again. Not far from the village there is a small detour in the path. A bridge is being constructed where pilgrims can cross a recently realized road. It gives and indication of how frequented the Camino must be during summer/spring.

I am fine walking in solitude, I actually quite like it. The variation of walkways is similar to that of the last few days. The stretches are always quite short and distances between towns are never really big which makes that it never really gets boring. It also causes me to feel like I’ve already covered quite a distance when in fact I’ve just walked a couple of kilometres. I don’t see many other people. Only the occasional car passes by. No chance to be seeing any cats today. Most creatures are wise enough to stay inside with this weather conditions. But I am buttoned up as best as can and warm enough to be enjoying this wet world when nobody else wants it. Well maybe some pilgrim on some other part of the Camino.

I am aiming to head back towards the coastal route again. Because progress is good I am looking to add some extra stages to the whole tour and the coastal route allows for doing this apart from also offering some nice views. For today it means that I will have to leave the comfort off the yellow arrows at some point to cross over to an alternative route which lies close to the Minho river which is the natural border between Portugal and Spain. After about 9 kilometres I arrive at this point.

By then I have already decided to walk towards a train station so I can possibly take a train to my targeted endpoint for the day and which is more or less on route anyway. When I have a look at the map I see that there is a big intersection of highways which I have to cross to get there. I don’t want to doing any dangerous freeway crossing but luckily I spot some mind of tunnel under one of the highways on Google Maps. Getting around the highway intersection results to be quite the challenge. I walk on a path which circles round the intersection but then suddenly there is a big pool of water in front of me and no way around it. I don’t feel like taking of my shoes again like I did yesterday. Then the sun was out. Now it’s still raining. But as I don’t want to get my shoes wet I pull out my slippers again and walk through the pool of water. I decide to keep on walking on my slippers untill I reach the highway underpass. Lucky I do so because the tunnel is also filled with water.

The remainder of my route to the train station I do with my walking shoes back on. I am getting wetter and wetter and when I get to the train station I am fully decided to take the train. Luckily I only have to wait half an hour for the train. I enter th café besides the train station and first thing I see is the television. World cup again. This time it’s Argentina playing Saudi Arabia. Argentina is behind 1 against 2. I pass my time drinking a other coffee while Argentina tries to tie the score.

But I have more important things to do and before the match ends I already board the train towards Vila Nova de Cerveira. The train interior has a warm atmosphere and is quite the contrast with the wet weather outside. It takes less then 10 minutes to cover the 10 km distance between the two villages, meaning that I have to abandon the cosiness of the train quickly again. Luckily the hostel is close to the train station where it’s also cosy. And very important; they have a drying machine!