Stage 10: Redondela - Pontevedra

This morning, a little after 7, we set off from Redondela. Shortly after the hostel, Carolina caught up with me, and we ran the first part of the route together. At first, it was a good climb again, so we took a break at a café to refuel. We were then approached by an older Spaniard, who constantly switched between German, English, and Spanish, which ended up confusing both him and us at some point 😅

We continued up the hill until a beautiful but still quite dark forest greeted us. Our eyes quickly adjusted, and we made great progress. Today, the path led us mostly up and down through the woods (with some very exciting ascents and descents; I had no idea how steep a 15% incline could be 😅), which was a nice change for our feet from asphalt. 

After nearly 3 hours, we took our first break at a forest café, where we also met Natalia, who soon moved on. Shortly after, Simon and Bernat joined us, along with the girls from last night. Carolina continued with them, and I took a longer break with Simon and Bernat before we tackled the rest of the route together. 

Now it was again quite a drop. However, my legs held up well today, both my feet and knees, even though I was moving at a good pace 💪

Just before Pontevedra, we found a small café where we met Noah and Ronja, and shortly after, Arturo as well. With Arturo, we then walked the last stretch of today's nearly 20 km.

Around 3 PM, we (Noah, Ronja, Simon, Arturo, Bernat, and I) went out again for food - it was pizza today 🍕.

It was a good kilometer to the city center, so our feet did a bit more moving than usual today. Unfortunately, the pizzas did not taste as good as they looked for everyone - using ketchup as pizza sauce had never crossed our minds... And the 'mozzarella' tasted more like processed cheese 🙈To console ourselves, we went for ice cream afterward, which was very tasty and at least somewhat made up for it. 😁

By the way, this is exactly the group with whom we will switch to the spiritual route tomorrow. This means we will not arrive in Santiago as planned on Sunday but rather on Monday. You will learn more in the coming days :)

Tonight, Ronja demonstrated her massage skills on Noah and me. Freshly loosened, we can welcome tomorrow :)

Since we have already booked our accommodation, we have no stress and can approach the upcoming 21 km calmly (but several elevation meters are also on the agenda 🥵).

Good night!