Portuguese Way - Day 9

Stage 9 Redondela to Arcade - Pontevedra 18.8km

Yesterday's day started completely differently from today because I am still in a hotel room in Pontevedra and slept through until 7:30 am. Unbelievable. No snoring or packing my backpack in a dark room. Because that's how the 9th day started yesterday.

So once again I woke up in a dormitory and the snorers were already packing their things at 5 am, so I couldn't sleep anymore. So I eventually got up in the semi-darkness and, to be particularly quiet, I took my things and moved them into the hallway. When I realized that my laundry was still hanging on the clothes rack in the room, I tiptoed back, carefully navigating the two small laminate steps in the middle of the room, and took down my laundry. It was quite a mountain of laundry that I had washed. But now quickly out again, I don't want to be the one who wakes everyone else up. Well, lost in thought, I overlooked the second step into the room, and you can imagine the following picture. Svenja stumbled over this second step, which is in the middle of the dormitory, and in slow motion, my body leaned forward, my arms were raised, and I saw the mountain of laundry in the air moving on its own. Flight phase. When gravity finally caught up with me, I crashed loudly, lengthwise, in the middle of the room onto the laminate floor! Embarrassing, now everyone was awake. And the laundry... I found a sock in the Asian guy's bed, the other one under the bunk bed of an older couple, and the rest was also scattered around the room. So I tried to pick up my things as quickly as possible and left the room with a bright red face - but it was dark anyway.

Fortunately, nothing else happened to me, except for a slightly bruised forearm and a missing sock.

And so I started my stage again in the rain!

It went up and down the whole 20km, it was very hilly and exhausting. At some point, I thought the rain had soaked through my jacket, but it was only my own sweat from the inside. My only chance to escape the loudly arguing group of male pilgrims from Spain was to be quick uphill! And that's when I had my peace again!

The city of Pontevedra is really big, so I treated myself to a €32 hotel room :). The old town is impressive and to my surprise, when I marched through the city to my hotel, Julia popped her head out of a hotel door! She had taken a taxi for the rest of the way here because she wasn't feeling well. Besides, Roland, Sissi, and Andreas also walked that far and will arrive in the city in the afternoon. I was delighted to see that we were almost complete for dinner again! Nico (the pubescent IT guy and son of Volker) from my old group was also in the city and joined us for dinner. Funny how we keep running into each other. The Way. I will definitely see the rest of them in Santiago or Finisterre!

That concludes this 9th stage and the 10th stage starts today with self-made sandwiches, sunshine, and another dose of pain, emotions, experiences, and pure happiness!

Buen Camiño!