I had a long and good sleep. We finished off the rest of the muesli and bananas (but not the wine) and set off. It was a drizzly, overcast morning and I could feel my blister despite the plaster. We'd talked about getting proper Compeed blister plasters a few times but pharmacies were always shut or not open yet. Peter had some with him but they were the big ones and this was a small spot between my toes. We tried cutting down a big plaster to make a small one but it didn't adhere properly. This morning we bit the bullet and went to a pharmacy and I managed to procure a box of small compeed plasters, and Peter patched up my foot on a bench outside. It still stung for about 10 minutes and then I never heard from it again.
Phew.
There was a lot of climbing, particularly earlier in the day. We could easily have been in Scotland. It was clagged in and we were climbing up on peaty trails with heather and ferns on either sides. At the top of the hill was a windfarm but, eerily, you could hear the yomp, yomp, yomp of the blades but only catch the odd glimpse of them through the mist. There were some hard to read bits of route, the most uncertain we'd been so far - where most of the way there were green arrows and spots marking the way, on this day we found ourselves on longish stretches with no green markings but also no real way we could think of that we could have gone wrong. To be fair, we hadn't read the travel notes closely - and still haven't! We had Peter's Suunto which he'd put the route into and my E-trex as back up, so there was never any real worry - just that we didn't want to make a long day any longer.
When we got down from the hills there were long coastal stretches - past a surf school down a remote road and then along an ever more remote road. Such long, long stretches of empty beaches and big green waves rolling in. Then we turned inland again and it was longer than I wanted it to be until we finally arrived in Lires.
At Lires we signed into our penultimate hotel. Our shy hostess gave us beers and nuts, for which I felt extravagantly grateful. After Maria's ebullient welcome at Cereixo, we were back to a more austere atmosphere. The bathroom was large and sterile and tiled to within an inch of its life.
I found when I took off my trainers that they were now smelling horrific, having been wet pretty much all day. Peter gave them a wash and dried them for me with the hair-dryer in the bathroom, which was nice of him, but it spread a sickening warm fungus smell throughout the bedroom. It was only belatedly we saw the sign saying "Please do not wash clothes in the room. There is a laundry in the back of the house." Oops. Too late.
We had asked our hostess (I don't know what to call her) where was good to eat and she'd said there was a place across the road and another one up the road. At the time, the thing that seemed best was to go to the nearest one. But then when I had a moment I looked on trip-advisor, and the one across the road was looking awful fancy-shmancy and quite pricey. All the food was seafood which might be a wonderful treat if you're into seafood - but I don't know my way around seafood and wasn't in the mood for all the angst - trying to figure out what things are and which hand you should eat it with and all that.
Much futther up the road was a basic seeming bar with reasonable prices and food that we now understood. Raciones! Salad Mixta. Salad completa! Cervezas! Bring it on.
So we marched up the hill and went there. I need to google and find out what it was called in case anybody cares....O Recuncho de Lires! Buen Hecho.
It had metal tables, bright lights, men playing cards and then going outside for a cigarette. We had albondigas! Meatballs, to you. And chips. And lots of them! And a big salad! And beers. We were big-time hungry and set to. It was the kind of place that likes it if you're hungry and you eat all your food. I'm the kind of person that likes that kind of place. We had wine. Lovely glasses of wine. And then a big bear of a man came out with the postres menu, so we didn't muck about, we had hot chocolate steamed puddings with melty chocolate insides and big dollops of not only ice-cream but SQUIRTY CREAM. OLE!!!
Woo hoo! And it was all for a smidgeon of the price of the fancy place down the road.
We rolled down the road back to our room, pleased with our choices.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
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