Uphill Both Ways

Ribadeo to San Xusto, 6-18-13 Today was rougher than we thought it would be. The day started out very pleasant. The air was just the right temperature, there was no rain in sight, the arrows all pointed the right way, but the trail became steep midway through. We climbed up and up and up. We did some down hill. Then more up hill. This whole time Gill and I were disparing because the next day(tomorrow) was suppose to be double the climb. We finally got a break in a small little park and Gill pulled out the book. "Oh" she said, "it actually was ascending 710km not 390 like I thought." It was no wonder we were tired. That's the most ascending we done so far. We also descended 695km. The hills and farms were beautiful, but each time we went down we knew the up was yet to come. We got to the albergue after 21km and there was a note on the door saying to call for them to open it. Well, wonderful, except we have no working phone over here. So Gill wrote down the number and I went down yet another hill to ask a man standing outside a house if he could call for us. He invited me in to call, and I thought of all of the horror movies that involve going into a stranger's house. Without another option I went in, subtly mentioning that my sister was waiting for me. They turned out to be a super nice couple. They were very helpful and told me about the albergue and how the caretaker doesn't like to come down to open it. They told me I had to be insistent, but despite my best efforts (I am perhaps not that insistent) the woman on the phone told me that we needed to walk 2 more km to one up the road. The couple told me it is because the woman owns a bar up the road and wants people to stay closer to her bar so they will eat there. We walked the 2 extra but we had already planned on cooking so we did. I guess that is 2km less we will have to walk tomorrow.