Unbelievable. Satoe and I hiked all day without rain. It did come but only after we were snug inside Gonzar's pilgrim hostel. The day even started with some beautiful cloudless skies, and we took a picture of the sun in the morning haze. The three of us went to breakfast at Casa de Carmen, a house/restaurant behind the refuge, and Pierre whipped us up some scrambled eggs with homemade chorizo, tomato, and mushrooms. It took a long time to convince the proprietor to stand aside and let the Frenchman work his magic. We did not want another Euro breakfast of bread and jam though. Thank you, Pierre. It was long before we were hiking and during that time unknown to us Alessandro, the girls, and Robert passed us.

Spirits were high with the nice weather and I hiked with Satoe until a section of road/trail that the rains had turned into a raging torrent. We tried to rock hop, but that did not work out well for me as my boots are full of holes and soon I was wet. Satoe waited a bit ahead, but I was too slow and she headed off. Here the girls from Quebec, Robert, and another French speaking woman caught up while I was wringing out my socks. At some point Satoe and I had leapfrogged them. Veronica and Adrianne stopped for snacks, but I wanted to get moving which I did. I passed through a lot of small hamlets and villages before I caught Satoe outside the town of Portomarín. This town was moved up the side of the hill when the dam was built. The water was low and some of the old town was visible along the banks and above the water. There is also an interesting fortified church that was moved stone by stone to the new town. It is a single, large nave with four towers in the corners and crenellated battlements.

After a hamburger and cider lunch, the two of us made tracks for Gonzar. During the afternoon clouds had been building, and we were beginning to worry that we would get wet during the interveining 7.5 km. We made it in time and found Alessandro there. Later, the girls arrived rather wet.

The evening was awesome. Alessandro finagled a great amount of wood, wine, and food from the caretaker. The fire was roaring, and the wine was flowing. Satoe did not join, and we were the only pilgrims there, but we had a wonderful little party and I received a chess lesson from Grandmaster Adrianne. She did not mention she used to win tournaments before we started. During ur second game I put up a very respectable fight and the others were long in bed before we finished. Outside wind and rain were beating against the windows, but we were feeling good in front of the last of the fire.