“Not all those who wander are lost.” –J. R. R. Tolkien  Town's plaza were we had dinner We left Sarria at about 7.30 am – no flat tires, what a relief. Our albergue last night was 8 Euros each, a little extra but it was very nice. This morning I had what I thought was the house coffee for the peregrinos, but it turned out that an Italian group had gotten up early to make a large pot while they all woke up. Luckily I was walking out of the kitchen when they walked in, I only found that it was theirs when I went back for more and the 8 of them had the pot of coffee in their table. We rode out of town early, it was still very cold, it was a downhill ride early in the morning, the wind was very cold and we had to get out gloves back on. Jessy and I bought some fruit and Jessy some small donuts to have it ready for the mid morning stop and rest, the 1st climb came half an hour later as we neared Barbadelo. Another climb came after a short rest into Ferreiros, but after this second climb it was going to be about 10k of downhills, I had to keep talking to Jessy to slow down on the descents, she loved the feeling of racing down the hills. I had the dreaded visions of coming around a bend and finding her laying on the side of the road from a fall due to going downhill at thirty miles an hour. Fortunately this did not occur! We arrived in Ventas de Raron in time for lunch, I want to the bank hopefully one last time and exchange about 80 dollars, We each had a pizza , that was still half frozen, We had some patatas and a cold drink. From Ventas it was a series of down hills through some small country roads, when we saw a sign for Santiago, it was now 57 Kilometers away, we still needed 9.6 k to get to Melide, the next small town, not a village. We ended up staying at Refugio ACAG in Melide, for the first time there is very little privacy in the showers, males went into one shower and it was an open concept, and the females the same. Jessica and I had our first spat earlier today, when we stopped for lunch I looked at her and said it was 11:45 when she looked at me and said “ what is that supposed to mean”? – We had been getting along really well all the trip. I did not say anything in reply, but about 30 minutes later she pointed something out in the scenery to me and now my reply was the same as hers. She got pissed off and rode away. An hour later we stopped to fill up our water bottle when I asked her if we could talk about what had happened earlier, now she was willing to hear me out. We talked about respect and dignity that all people want to feel in a relationship, I asked her if that is how she feels people should be treated. We talked about when it happens at home; we also talked about how mom and I handle it differently. How I like to talk about it and how mom handles it with subtle hints that you must be in tune to be able to understand it yourself and to be able to grow from them.  Entering A Coruna Today we did about 70 K’s, after getting cleaned up we walked about town and picked up dinner at a very nice and clean supermercado. We got ourselves a chicken and mushroom tart which we could only eat about half because it was so big, also some fruit and some drinks, We ate dinner sitting in a town square outside a large church on a stone bench and talked about the ride, Jessica asked me if I was going to cry tomorrow when we reached Santiago. My reply was “most likely, I will be so happy to have completed this journey with you” I told her how happy I was with her , that she had been so tough throughout the 2 weeks even when she was in pain, she continued to push herself. It soon got very cold and on our way back to the albergue we saw a bakery and stopped by to talk, they assured us that they would be opened in the morning for pastries before we head out on our day's ride. Earlier when we checked in, there was an older peregrino that had laid all his belongings out to sleep just outside the albergue because he could not afford the cost of the night. He was still there half asleep when we walked up to him and offered him the remainder of our dinner, he happily took it. In the morning when we were leaving he was still outside, now talking to another peregrino but with more energy that the night before and more light in his eyes.
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