Day 12 - To Melhada

Walked today: 20.8 km
No of steps: 26,910
Total walked: 165.9 km

Breakfast in our room; a bottle of juice and a sweet bun.  Out in the dark we made good progress in the cool weather of dawn.

We met more pilgrims, we saw the Finn who walks fast, alone, big pack and a shopping bag in his hand, we saw the two old Frenchmen, later we met Zuc Ya from Korea, we met a group the includes Mary Joy from the US, Andrés, a Young man from Argentina, and Ori from Brasil.  All of them passed us. We are slow walkers. We stopped a couple of times for coffee and drinks. They don't seem to sell diet Coke or Coke zero, that is too bad for an addict like me.  On the other hand Brenda is too happy that there is vinho Verde everywhere.

Pretty well all the walk is on asphalt, on not too busy roads.  All morning with a mostly gentle slope up.  Quite a bit easier than yesterday. 

We had close to 17 km under our belt when we entered the busy N1 highway.  It was after 1 pm,  so we had been walking for 5:30 hours. Steep hill, and the sun at full blast, well, it hit me suddenly.  My legs felt like lead, I had a headache, I was very hot and may be a bit disoriented.  I had been there.  I realized I was getting heat exhaustion.  Fortunately we were not far from Santa Luzia.  There is a very fancy restaurant there so we went in. Air conditioning, lots of cold water and a light lunch and I was better.

There were still close to 8 km to Melhada on a mountain trail.  Not much chance to get help there so we decided to be prudent and take a taxi.

In Melhada we found a nice hotel , not expensive and we rested all afternoon.  In the evening we went for a nice walk in the park and we had dinner at the albergue next door. We had roasted piglet which is the specialty of this town.

Asking for our holy mother Mary for her protection and her prayers we end the day.

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