10/8 – we walked all the way through Pontevedra with the plan to stay at the only pension on our map that was north of the city, to give us a jump on the next day’s mileage. Yup, you guessed it, the place had gone out of business years ago. Our guidebook let us down again… We didn’t want to walk back to town, so we kept walking until we found an open bar. Jim stuck his head in and asked if there was any place we could rent a room for the night, and a lady jumped right up and motioned us to follow. Sure enough, a new building with no sign, with rooms to rent, and right on the Camiño!

11 miles to Caldes de Rais, with rain, rain, then torrential rain. We got soaked through, and there was an inch of water in my backpack!

Some people carry umbrellas rather than pack covers, but at the end of the day, we’re all just as wet.

Luckily, our pension had a washing machine, and, thanks to the spin cycle, our clothes came out much drier than they went in! (And smelled much better, too!)

10/9 – 12 more miles to Padrón, our penultimate day before walking into Santiago tomorrow. Our nice pension man told us that the rain wouldn’t start until 11am, so we got as much mileage as we could in the morning.

Sure enough, at 11 on the dot, the rain pelted down. I was feeling cold and bedraggled when we passed by a little statue of Santiago. Even though I don’t like to take my camera out in the rain, I had to capture his expression. Standing all day in the rain, he looked as miserable as I felt!

Here is the bridge into Padrón:

We are staying at the Pension Grilo, which translates as Cricket. Imagine my surprise when we went down to dinner and saw their sign:

Should we tell them that there is a difference between a cricket and la cucaracha?