Melide

Melide is famous for its Octopus. It is great! We spent a couple of hours in a Pulpeteria, probably one of the best in the world. The octopus was great. Served with a bottle of wine, bread, boiled potatoes with paprika and a wooden platter of octopus and toothpicks to eat it with. The octopus is served with plenty of olive oil and a lot of paprika.

There was a mix of locals and perigrinos. It is a fiesta day here, so most everything was closed. I am not sure if the locals are more in evidence at the pulperia, but I think not. The local panaderia (baker) was swamped with locals stocking up for fiesta.

The Camino is full of people. Mostly young people doing the last 100 km for their credential, but including the people we have seen before. We saw the Korean priest we met in Logrono, the guitar player from Texas and others. Vicky was in the Pulperia and she is from Conroe, not far from The Woodlands.

The character of the Camino is much different the last 100 km. Many more people and not the same camradarie that we have seen before. But it is well supported by the Spanish.

We are about 50 km from Santiago, which we plan to do in three easy days. We did our last long day yesterday, with about 16 miles of walking. The weather is generally cool, but it heats up later in the day. The people on a schedule are walking a great distance these days, but we are ahead of schedule so we are taking it easy. Eating lots of octopus in Melide.