Day 10: Caldas de Reis to Escravitude

We woke up to rain. It looked like we would have our first wet day on the Camino, and the streets and paths were certainly wet. The forecast was for clearing, and the rain had stopped by the time we ate breakfast and were packing. So we didn't put our pack covers on. That turned out to be a good decision. There was no more rain.

Day 10 was bittersweet. Our goal was in sight, and we would reach Santiago the next day. But the end of our Camino experience was also in sight. This had been so enjoyable that I didn't really want it to end.

A common plan for the last two days on the Camino Portugués is to spend the night in Padrón and then walk to Santiago the next day. That breaks the remaining distance into two days of about 18.1km/11.3mi and 24.9km/15.6mi. We decided to walk past Padrón to have a longer Day 10 and a shorter walk into Santiago on Day 11. We wanted to reach Santiago in time for the Peregrino Mass at noon.

With a bit of research and help from booking.com, I had been able to reserve a casa in the village of Escravitude for the end of Day 10. That turned out to be a great decision.

As Day 10 was going to be almost 17 miles, we decided to slow down and take more breaks. Having a cool start to the day helped.

After about 5km, we found Café Esperon in the village of O Cruceiro. We decided to take an early break - good decision. The café is owned by an older woman who loves peregrinos. We found several others there - including a couple from New York. We had met them earlier. They were paying caminoways.com to arrange lodging and transport their bags each day. The walls of the building were covered with peregrino writing.

Most of this day was spent in forests or farmland and small towns.

We stopped again with less than 30km remaining ...

... and had our favorite Camino sandwiches again. These might have been the most boring ones we found - uninteresting bread, skimpy on the ham and cheese.

The day remained cool and mostly cloudy. Our afternoon was full of interesting sights.

With less than 25km to go,

we stopped in Padrón for drinks.

As always, we were given free snacks with our drinks.

We still had 4+ miles to walk, so we headed out of Padrón and enjoyed the rest of our day.

Less than 20km!

Casa Grande de Capellania has been run by the same family for a few generations. The building has been restored and remodeled inside, and we had a very nice stay. There was no doubt about the distance to Santiago - the way marker was at the corner of our building.

The Canadian sisters and a young peregrino from Brasil were the only other people staying there, and they both had dinner in the Casa. That would have been a good choice, but Allie and I went to a small restaurant across the street and enjoyed some typical food.

Our Camino was nearly complete!

Today:
Distance:    26.9km / 16.8mi
Walk time:  5:19
Stop time:   1:55
Avg. pace:  11:52/km / 18:59/mi
Ascent:       1460 ft
Descent:     1545 ft
Weather was cool and overcast with a high of about 26C (79F)

Progress:
Distance:    223.5km / 145.3mi
Walk time:  45:05
Avg. pace:  11:38/km / 18:37/mi
Ascent:       9804 ft
Descent:     10103 ft

Day 10 Credencial - almost full!