Today was a prescribed 29km day. Yesterday we walked the first 8km to cut it down a bit as the last 7km of the day was a roller coaster.

So the first 5km we walked today was absolutely spectacular. Rolling single track trail on top of an old Roman road tooks is through thick forests and hidden little farms. Aside from dramatic mountain ranges, emerald valleys, sweeping landscapes, this type of walking in Spain is what I really look forward too.

The next 7km were through similar landscapes but on country lane asphalt. Asphalt is it fun to walk on, especially since I’m walking in sandals. The sandals give me -almost- issue free walking. But the main issue is there’s little heel padding and asphalt takes it’s toll on the heels.

After the first 12km, we had an intense 2.5km descent of about 350m to the river Miño. That’s about 730’ per mile. This trail was beautiful but for the fact that the steep descent with leaf covered stones of the Roman road made a very slippery descent where I had to place my full attention to where I was placing my feet. Once at the bottom, the bar I was looking forward to was… closed . We took a 15min break at the river and headed up the other side. This time we ascended the same elevation change in the same distance. There were no fallen leaves but there were times we were walking up steps of the old Roman road – with 12” deep wheel ruts on the sides in places. It was a brutal 5km but we did it in good time.

We’re now in a city called Chantada – which has a medieval castro histórico and I remember the name because it’s close to the Spanish word Encantada – or enchanted.

We are also at a milestone to Santiago – there are only 105km left. That means a couple of things – we will probably see more pilgrims from here on out, we only have four days left, and we need to get our credential stamped twice daily to prove we walked. Tomorrow I should have a picture of the 100km marker.