Day 24: Sarria to Gonzar. Disney Meets the Boy Scouts

We now understand what the guidebook meant when it warned of the huge influx of pilgrims joining the Camino at Sarria.  Why does this happen?  Because you need to walk at least 100 kilometers in order to earn a “Compostela”, the certificate of completion for the Camino.  In Spain, a Compostela is a valuable credential when applying for jobs, applying to schools, etc.  It’s a status symbol.  Sarria is 112 kilometers from Santiago, so this is where pilgrims join the Camino for the last leg of the journey.

We left our hotel at 6:30 am, a little later than usual.  We enjoyed a quick cup of coffee in a local café, and no sooner had we finished when a hoard of young Italian students crowded inside ordering cappuccinos (Spaniards drink café con leche).  We could barely get out of the café, it was so crowded! 

Cafe Scene 6:30 am in Sarria

And that was just the start of it.  There were hoards of people walking onto the camino from Sarria.  There were school groups, church groups, large groups of friends, rowdy people, groups of people singing, people with babies in strollers(!)…lots of LOUD people.  Lots of people who wouldn’t let you pass. It was unbelievable. There’s a name for people walking the Camino in this manner: “tour”egrino.  The lines along the road leading out of town looked like those photos of Mount Everest this summer! 

About 80% of these “pilgrims” carried only day packs.  They checked their large suitcases in their pre-booked hotels, to be delivered to the next pre-booked hotel.  Why is this a problem? Two reasons.  First, carrying everything you need for the journey in a single bag, on your back, is a great life lesson.  It teaches you the difference between “want” and “need”.  Every additional item you choose to take along, you have to carry the entire way.  You learn not to pack anything extra.  If you need something, you can find it on the way.  So no extra food, no extra clothing, no “nice to have” niceties.  Just the basics.  Those checking large suitcases never had to make these choices.

Second, a bag weighs you down.  It slows your gait.  It makes you focus on the road so you don’t trip and fall.  The journey becomes a struggle, a good struggle.  Those with day packs were racing across the Camino.  We even saw groups of young people running, as if this was a marathon.  The runners and fast pacers were weaving in and out of the crowd, making the road all that more dangerous for the rest of us.  It was truly unpleasant.

After a few hours of steady walking, we started to get reasonable distance between us and the other pilgrims.  The day became filled with the familiar idyllic, rustic views of the Spanish countryside. 

Lovely Stream along the Route

Views From the Walk

We also passed many properties subdivided with low stone walls.  In Galicia, inheritance laws require(d) that real property be split equally among all the surviving children.  This resulted in smaller and smaller parcels of land, many too small to sustain a family farm.  An example of these walled divisions follows.

Subdivided Galician Land

We also started seeing many “Horreos”.  These are traditional corn cribs.  Thery’re built on four stilts to keep them off the ground.  They have an overhanging ornamental roof to keep the rain out, and (traditionally) wooden slats along the sides to keep the air circulating.  

Here’s what these typically look like.

A Typical Galician Horreo

Another aspect of this phase of the Camino is loud, boisterous music blaring from sidewalk cafes luring pilgrims to stop for refreshments.  It’s really annoying.  We walked 17 kilometers before stopping for our Coca Cola break—longer than originally planned.  It was a beautiful café in the town of Mercadoiro, just shy of the guidebook’s target for the day: Portomarin.

Tina at the Outskirts of Portomarin

For this leg of our journey, we decided we'd walk to destinations which weren't "featured stops" in the Camino guidebooks.  Most pilgrims follow the recommendations of the guides, so they congregate in those towns.  We wanted to set our own path.

We walked about 8 kilometers further, along cool, shaded paths, to a tiny village called Gonzar.

Paco Along the Shaded Path to Gonzar

We're staying in a wonderful hostel where we've met lots of new friends.  Maya is a young Israeli girl who will start University in October.  We also met two lovely ladies from Hungary who started the Camino from St Jean Pied Port one day earlier than we did.  It's such a small world!  And along the way today, we saw our bicyclist Camino friend from Santa Fe.  We're so glad he was looking strong and healthy.

We've planned out our trip for the remaining 85 kilometers of the journey.  We also booked our albergues for the next few days.  This was necessary because the "tour"egrinos pre-book everything, so regular pilgrims have no rooms when they arrive.  Sigh.  This really takes the spontaneity out of the equation.