One of the differences we have noticed nearing Galicia is that their grain storage houses or horreos are shaped differently, rectangles instead of squares.
It was with a great sense of relief and excitement that we walked across the very long Os Santos Bridge into the pretty city of Ribadeo in Galicia, Spain's most north westerly province. The western cliffs at Finisterra were thought to be " the end of the world" by the Romans.
The natives in this area speak two languages, Galician ( related to Portuguese) and Spanish. We've been trying to communicate in Spanglish and so far have got by. I have to admit that I smile and nod a lot while saying "Si" and "Gracias" for every second word. So funny!
Once in town we went to business of going to a bank to exchange money and buy a few items and fresh food that we needed. I am loving the peaches and apricots here. We've been buying them when we pass through big towns ever since we were in Basque Country. It is impossible to buy a vegetarian dinner at a restaurant and as a result I've had to resort to eating a lot of carbs: bread and patatas fritas ( French fries). I can't wait for my own home cooked healthy meals again!
Enjoying the sights of this lovely city and encountering friendly and helpful locals, we decided to press on.
The Camino was now taking us up, up and away into the mountains with small villages once again. We noticed more vegetable food farming and forestry. We are heading into a biosphere reserve area. Apparently the introduced Eucalyptus Tree has run rampant in the wild. It was first planted by the paper industry in the mid twentieth century and we've noticed how commonly found these trees are now.
Along the Camino, ever since the start we've come across these odd little sculptures outside of people's homes consisting of stones and steel rods bent into various shapes and it has piqued our curiosity.
Even though our injuries are still painful, they seem to be improving and we still managed to hike 21miles/34km and found a great place to "wild camp" on the top of a mountain. Next to the path leading down to the camp site where some deer hoof prints. There is evidently a very endangered European Wolf but farmers and hunters have almost exterminated it.
One thing we've noticed an abundance of are birds of prey which look like Hawks. We see them every day.
After camouflage the tent looked a bit different again.
We tried taking a panorama photograph of the map of the Camino Del Norte to show how far we've walked. It's been a very long way!
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