First, the numbers. Today was approximately 16 miles, bringing the total to 493 miles walked.   Tomorrow we cross over the 500-mile mark, which I suspect has some significance but it doesn’t change how many more miles we have to walk. Put simply, it is what it is, so put a Band-Aid on that blister and get back out there walking!.

The Camino Frances is a beautiful trail, through many shallow valleys and rolling hills. Interestingly, though only 40 or 50 miles away from the Camino Del Norte, it is a much drier trail. It is amazing how the climate changes so much in so short a distance.

With hundreds of beautiful shots available I instead chose to focus on this. Frankly, it was really cool! This mushroom was about 8 inches in diameter and an entirely flat top surface. And for those of you who remember all of our flower pictures from 2 years ago, I promise I will not have any more mushroom pictures after this.

So, we are not alone. During a typical day on the Del Norte, we might encounter 5 – 20 fellow peregrinos. Because the final section of the Camino Frances from Sarria on is the shortest distance that you can walk and still get a credential, many many peregrinos join the trail at this point. In fact we estimate that in about 2 minutes we see more peregrinos on this Trail then we seen the course of a full day on the Del Norte. It is still a beautiful Trail, and the people are still wonderful and doing their own Camino, it’s just more popular. We have been informed by many others, including Willow, that before Sarria the trail was wide open with far fewer peregrinos.

Enough for now, the standard chores await.