Sarria to Portomarin

Leaving Sarria at 5:30 a.m.

Sometimes the best place for the wrong shoes is as far away from you as you can throw them

Many hundreds of pilgrims start in Sarria. The exuberance is infectious

and each pilgrim chooses how to walk, sometimes with two legs, sometimes with four

And some horses just get lucky

Entering Portomarin 

In Sarria the hospilatero said that Portomarin was "completo" meaning that every bed was sold out and there would be very few beds available on arriving. 

Municipal Alburgue de Portomarin does not take reservations ahead of time. After standing in a long line for a long time, waiting for one of the eighty available beds, five of us toward the end of the line were told that we would receive one of the last five beds they had at the albergue. 

The rest of the people were told not to worry somehow, they, too, would be accommodated.

Inside the albergue:

Bunk beds with paper sheets

Shoes always kept away from beds

Stairs up to the beds, down to the showers

Clothesline for hand washed clothes 

No doors on the showers today but clean

Camino Magic