Day13, Camino Walk, Armenteira to Vilanova de Arousa

 Miles-16.6, Time 7:59, Weather-Cloudy w/ misty/drizzle rain all day. Temp-high-50’s. Elevation-756ft. Big miles day but an awesome day. We were out the door by 7:30, and it was already a misty foggy start to our day. We had to hike back a mile, all up hill to get back to the trail. We started off by going down,  probably the best 3 mile section of the our entire Camino walk. It’s called The Trail of Water & Stone. You walk by a little stream with multiple small water falls, moss covered trees and rocks plus passing the remits of 50+ very very very old grist mills. Most were just stone walls w/ the forest reclaiming them, but there were a few still standing. With the misty rain and the quiet solitude of the forest w/ only the sound of the stream moving by it made it such a surreal experience.

Words are hard to describe the feeling of it. Once we got near the bottom, a beautiful site popped up before us, a small Cafe with are name on it. Stopped for our Coffee, OJ, a delicious pastry and I bought a fresh baked brownie, right out of the oven, for later!!! The Camino Provides. After a bit we found ourselves walking along a bigger river on a dirt path with grape vine fields as far as you could see. This went on for what felt like forever. Then another Cafe stop for a pit stop and a Coke Zero!!. It had been drizzling all day long, sometimes harder than others,  but just not enough to put on the only piece of gear that we brought that had not been used yet, our poncho’s. Once we broke free of the river and grape vine fields, the city walking began. At about mile 9 the rain finally started to fall, so on went our poncho’s. Now I love walking in the rain, Maryann not so much😂. We end up at this little church, where Maryann got a ride to our place of stay, from a man who offers pilgrims a helping hand. More on that later. So I continued on down the road with 6+ more miles to walk. I soon caught up to our new Camino friends, Gary & Nancy and we walk together into Vilanova de Arousa. I finally arrived in Vilanova de Arousa, got to our place of stay and it was a dump. I single small room, no place to put anything, no extra blankets, only one bathroom for the entire place and that was a floor below us, and no towels to boot. We changed quickly to a Hotel that was just down the street😂. Now more about the man that took Maryann into town. A few yrs back when we were first going to do the Camino, she reached out to this man’s wife for a place to stay. To make a long story short they have corresponded back and forth a few times over the years and the next thing you know he gives Maryann a ride and they invited us for dinner at there house that night, The Camino Provides!!!! Picture time.