I caught up with Helen and Mark, and like me, we were knackered. Not only because of today, but it’s now been thirty odd days of busting your arce through hell and back. I’m definitely not complaining, it’s been very rewarding and very satisfying. I could see Helen was ready for a good night’s sleep. After a couple of drinks, they headed back to their patch and me back to mine. It’s almost nine pm. Crickey, time most pilgrims are snoring and farting. But I’m not ready to go to sleep. It’s on dusk and the locals are out and about, so I stop at a patisserie have some grub and another beer. I then stop at one of the dozen or so more bars that are rocking with plenty of punters and have a cup of tea and some cheese cake. It’s now ten pm and I think I should walk the kilometre back and get to bed to prepare myself for tomorrow’s walk. I slept well. As I leave my hostal,after a nice hot shower, there are heavy clouds,but not icy cold like it has been. Leaving Sarria I don’t see many pilgrims,until I get outside the town area. Holyy shit!!wall to wall day packs on backs. Looks more like the boxing day sales at a major shopping centre than the camino. Swarms of them like flies gathering around cow shit. So, I’m out of here. As I was climbing, I kept getting past a swarm before the next swarm. Then I thought, what the heck, as I settled into my walk. Apart from some country roads, a lot also on natural paths. On occasions rain started, but only lasting a minute. So no need for poncho. The wind however, did keep temperatures down. After ten kilometres I saw the first cafe for the day, and decided to walk by. Mark spotted me amongst the aliens 👽 🤣, so I went in to tell him that I didn’t like this cafe, he agreed when he found out you could only buy coffee from a vending machine. Helen, Mark and I left there and stopped at the next cafe, about four kilometres on. A much better cafe, but it took a while to get served. That is how our camino will end, so get used to it. On the afternoon run into Portomarin, we did chat with american sisters Karen and Donna, sunshine coast sisters Christene and Jane, mother and daughter Vicki and Sophie, also from Australia, and some others. Also the way did seem to thin out a lot. I guess it will be much the same over the next few days. The many vendors set up along the trail are selling much merchandise as you would see at a football game.