Day 7 - To Solanda

Walked today: 14.6 km
No of steps:  18,900
Total walked: 78.0 km

Up at 7 am and finished breakfast at 8:30 am.  Good bye to the luxury of the Hotel dos Templarios.

The pilgrimage really starts here. My backpack is lighter than last time but with water and some food is still around 10 kilos. We found the first yellow arrow jus after crossing the river.

Yesterday we went to a laundromat to get our clothes washed and somehow when we went back to the hotel we were missing a sock.  That left me with two and a half pairs.  Good enough for me but not for Wonder woman.  She had to walk 4 extra blocks to go hunting for the sock while I waited by a yellow arrow.  Of course she is stubborn enough that she found the missing sock. 

The the trail goes up, and up.  It splits; one way follows the river and the other goes through town. We decided to follow the river until we found a singn by the association of St. James in 4 languages that said something like this:

This trail is difficult and goes through isolated areas where it will be difficult to ask for help. There is danger of roberies and violation. 

I was easily convinced to go back 500m and take the trail through town.

After a while we switched to a dirt road and crossed many fields of olive trees.  It was cloudy so it did not feel too hot.  The trail goes up and down, follows the river for a bit and then up a very steep coarse gravel road.  Very hard to walk on.
Another hour and around 11 am we entered a paved road.  Easier to walk on but still going up. Then the sun hit. Temperature up to 32 C, very hot.

Eventually, around 1 o'clock we arrived to Solanda.  We had walked 12 km, we had planned to go to the next town, another 2.5 km. So we stopped for a cold Coke zero. 
At that point Carlos, the owner of the albergue where we are staying tonight, called and he said he was coming for us.  We were short of our planned goal but we were thankful.  We had enough time for a bowl of hearty Portuguese vegetable soup with vinho verde

Now we are in Carlos' albergue in Alvaiazere.  We showered, we took our clothes to the laundromat, we stopped at the church and prayed the rosary in front of a statue of our Lady of Fatima.

To finish the day we had dinner with Rosanne from Australia, Claudette from B.C. and Craig from Florida.

Our Lady of Fatima pray for us.