There once was a Spanish amigo,
Who loved his Caldo Gallego.
When his body would fail,
He'd eat lots of kale
And gone was his muscle fatiguo .
Would that I could grow kale like that! For that's what it is, I'm fairly certain, this leafy vegetable that makes up the bulk of Caldo Gallego, the soup of Galicia. In Portugal, Fred the Brazilian, had said that the word in his language translated into cabbage, and that's what kale is, a kind of upwardly mobile cabbage. I have seen it grow as tall as I am.
This morning I followed minor roads out of town as they crossed back and forth under the highway, For much of the time I kept apace with a blind man and his wife and daughter. She, the wife, was leading him and giving a running, or walking, commentary on the state of the path.
The country is much greener now. When I mentioned at breakfast that it looked like rain again, I was mildly reprimanded by a woman who said, "Ah, but you are in Galicia. Because of the rain, it's green!"
After a coffee at Mos, it was a steady climb up to the park around Mount Cornedo. I kept getting mixed up with a packet of day trippers who spoke with familiar accents and took photos of everything that didn't move. But I shouldn't mock. I started out my Camino-walking in a group like that many years ago.
From the park it was a leisurely downhill stroll into Redondela. I couldn't resist taking this photo of a kerfuffle of chocks basking in the sun in a yard on the way down. Happy chooks!
Lazy bones, lying in the sun,
How'd you think I'm going to get my day's work done?
Arriving early, I found a lower bunk at the large municipal hostel. After my chores, I treated myself to a plate of pulpo. It was magnificent: salty, sandy (you feel that you're crunching on the odd grain, but you're not), and rubbery (not so your teeth are going to bounce apart as you chew, but a firm, springy texture). And a young vino tinto, foaming on the surface, which arrived in a china breakfast bowl,
... a beaker full of the warm south,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim.
Reason enough in itself to come to Spain!
Consequently, for supper, I had only a couple of beers and the complimentary tapas that came with them.
There are very many people on the Camino now, too many, really, even to develop a nodding acquaintance with. I have heard the Portuguese Camino is now second in popularity only to the Camino Frances. Our albergue was full by late afternoon, the neighbouring private hostel soon after.
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