May 17 and 18, 2026

20 kilometres to go, tomorrow I get to Santiago!

Two more days have gone by, walking through woods, fields and small towns, up and down and up and down. The landscape hasn’t changed much, except that there are more and more eucalyptus trees. They are not native to Spain, but were introduced a couple centuries ago by a monk returning from Asia, and have thrived here.

On May 17 I walked about 30K. It took about 7.5 hours including various stops to eat and rest. The weather was once again cool overcast with a bit of drizzle/rain.

You know you are in Galicia when you see horreos. Horreos are traditional storage places for keeping grains and vegetables. They are built on pillars topped with a flat stone, to prevent rodents to get in. 

In Arzúa I stayed at a hostel with one of the more unique bunk beds construction. Each set of bunks had steps in the middle, and the beds were comfortable platforms. The picture below shows 2 of the 4 bunk beds by the steps – I hope that explains it.

Today, May 18, I walked only 20K. It’s amazing how by now walking 20K with my backpack on seems like a “short walk”.

Leaving Arzúa, it was quite cool. The sky was clear blue but there was a fair bit of low laying fog. It made the landscape a bit magical. The fog burned off by 9 or so, and for the first time in quite a few days I got to walk in sunshine. It stayed cool though, and by the afternoon it was once again overcast with a strong wind. 

We are getting close to Santiago, so there are quite a few signs telling us poor, tired walkers how much more we have to walk.

There are also many more people walking the Camino. The reports from the pilgrims office in Santiago says that about 2,500 pilgrims arrive daily. Of those, about 2/3 are walking only the required minimum 100 kilometres from Sarria to Santiago, to get the Compostela, the certificate of completion of a Camino. The remaining 1/3 are from the Francés and the other 3 or 4 Caminos that converge to the Francés in the last 100K. They frequently have very large suitcases that they ship from albergue to albergue, and carry a daypack for the daily trek.

The reality is though that for probably quite a few of these 100K walkers, walking that distance is as much, if not more, of an effort than for me to walk 800K.

Another thing that’s different is the many catchy things that restaurants and hostels do to get the walkers to stop at their place. For example this place had a sign for people to write a message on a bottle and put the bottle on the fence:

Below are a couple pictures from the walk today:

A big joy for me today was to meet up with a Korean woman I met the second day of the Camino, and on and off throughout the days. She and her husband are walking together. I love talking a bit with them, even though it is very slow because I have no Korean and they only some English. 

My hostel tonight is very clean and comfortable. I am lucky today, nobody has the top bunk.

Tomorrow – SANTIAGO!

Good night!