June 4 Sarria to Portomarin 13 miles

Song of the day:  "Life is a Carnival" by the Band:

We're all in the same boat ready to float off the edge of the world 

The flat old world 

The street is a sideshow from the peddler to the corner girl 

Life is a carnival--it's in the book 

Life is a carnival--take another look 

Well, things have definitely changed out here on the Camino.  A few days ago, I explained that you must hike at least the last 100km (62 miles) of the Camino to receive a Compostella.  Sarria is the first town  past 100 km, and is the most popular starting spot for the walk.  It seems like there were probably 4 times as many hikers today as there have been in the past.  And the number of bicyclists has increased exponentially.  In a normal day, we probably saw 5 or 6 bikes; today, we were passed by perhaps 100. Linda called the day "caminoghedden", similar to "carmaghedden" when they closed the 405 freeway in LA for a weekend last year and forced the cars to alternative routes!  

It's easy to spot many of the new people.  First, their clothes are brand new and don't show signs of wear from the prior four weeks.  Second, they tend not to have serious hiking gear.  For example, we have seen several women out here carrying shopping bags, another guy was carrying a boom box!  We half expected to see the Khardashian sisters in their high heals!  It truly is a carnival atmosphere out here.  

The segment today was another beautiful hike across Galicia.  As yesterday, the scenery is rolling farm land, lots of cows and  beautiful wooded trails.   I was able to get another great shot of Linda underneath a grazing cow!  Once again, the weather was outstanding, cool and misty in the morning, warm and sunny in the afternoon.  I may break out my shorts tomorrow!  

We passed part of the time today walking with 3 young people from Japan, China and New Zealand.  For about 20 minutes, we sang the songs from Le Miz!  The Japanese guy knew the words to every song and said he has seen the play and the movie numerous times.

We had a lite lunch at a bar along the way.  We sat with a woman from England who has been walking since mid April.  She said that due to health problems, she can't walk very far each day, and so is taking much longer.  However, one of the problems she faces is that each day, she sees a new group of people, and then never encounters them again because they are ahead of her.  For us, one of the true pleasures of this trip has been running into people over and over again.  For example, we saw a guy yesterday that we spent time with a couple of weeks ago, and then lost track of him. He was behind us, but then caught up.  Someone explained this to me as the "slinky" effect.

Tonight we are staying in our cheapest hotel yet, at $45 per night.  Its definitely not the fanciest room in the world, but we do have a private bath with plenty of hot water, and reasonable beds.  The accommodations get a little scarce on this section, so you take what you can get.  

Tomorrow is a longer segment at 17 miles.  We are thinking that we will leave a little earlier in hopes of beating the crowds.