Sep 30, 20173 min read

Day 28 – is that a crematorium?

Day 28 – Samos to Ferrieros, 32kms, 8.5 hours

We hit the road at 650am and walked for 3 hours before stopping, all confused going ‘i thought there was a town in 10km?’. We were doing a good pace so had no doubt done 15km+ already. Every map we look at is completely inconsistent. We were miles away!

If the morning wasnt so nice, foggy, walking across the country side, listening to birds wake up and sing it could have been a lot worse.

Sunrise is about 8:15am so the path in the dark this morning, turned into a tunnel. I was in front with the head lamp and to be honest this was the one time i was actually terrified. (Yes jess & anna i was – wasnt gonna let on though). It reminded me so much of the sketchy snake & dingo lair corner we avoided like the plague in the bush growing up back in Beauy. This was a narrow passage bound either side by rock wall with trees over head. Wasnt liking it at all. Every noise i heard, i just refused to look up. But after an hour the sun starts to come up and all is not so scary any more.

Just scary that youve walked about 17km before breakfast. And you thought you had that to go after breakfast.

We finally rock into Assaria and are faced with a huge wall of stairs to get up to the cafe area on a hill. Nothings easy on this walk! Still on a no fun at all diet, i get plain toast while the other 2 tuck into pan au chocolates & coffees.

We continue, apart from the day being extremely long, the scenery was mostly the same, green rolling hills, small villages, farm land, stone wall fences in between paddocks.

If we couldnt put our foot in it any more times than we have, the 3 of us were exiting Assaria, trying to psych ourselves up for the next 8km stretch so here we are screaming ‘fire it up’ over an over. I look to my right and its an above ground cemetery (basically a morgue cemetery, the dead are just in drawers) with a group of people standing dressed in black. ‘Girls shhhhh, oh no its a funeral’ i whisper. Anna – ‘wait is that a crematoriam? were we just shouting ‘fire it up’ outside a crematorium??!?!’ We then walked on “quietly” in hysterics.

We met 2 deaf guys today. They were so nice, but not understanding sign language or spanish made it very hard to communicate but we got there. Theyre from tenneriefe in the canary islands and were walking about 40kms a day. Thank goodness the ‘you are crazy’ hand gesture is universal. They wanted to walk with us but after about 30kms in the sun we decided to call it a day at Ferrieros. I wouldnt call it a town. It was one restaurant and an albergue. The albergue was like a mansion though! Deck chairs out on the lawn in the sun. Phone charger beside every bed, hot shower with enough space to shave your legs, and hang your clothes without getting wet. Its the little things. Pretty good for 10 euro.

I ran into another german lady agnes who i had met weeks ago during the blister evening. It was lovely to see her again. She was on the bottom bunk, i had top. Then as i was getting into bed, she helped me pull up my sleeping bag, and pulled up and tucked my blanket in for me. It was the sweetest thing someones done for me (other than everything jess and anna have done) for a long time. Again she doesnt speak english very well. But her smile, wink and goodnight, made my day.

It was a pretty non eventful day otherwise thank goodness. Mumford & Sons album Babel got me through today.

We are now 700metres off the 100km to go marker! The number of fresh new american tour groups doing the last 100km are growing and its damn annoying! But i need to be patient and remember its all exciting for them. You end up feeling like a camino attraction when they find out youve been walking for 4 weeks. ‘4 weeks??!! Im tired after 4 hours! God bless you girls!’

R.x