17/5 Tuesday Salceda to Lavacolla 17km
Last night I ate a delicious pilgrim menu of stuffed peppers, pork cheek and fried potatoes and chocolate chip ice cream. Tony, from Dublin, and Linda, from Chicago, invited Tom, from Florida and I to join them.

We had some interesting discussion about their various faiths, dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church and the varying importance of God in our lives. Tony had clearly undertaken critical studies of biblical texts and believed in the symbolism of the bible rather than literal interpretation. Tom insisted he needed his faith and God to be a good and less selfish person. Interestingly, none of them had even heard of Humanism or the idea that we could evolve our own values and codes without something passed down from a deity.

Whatever our beliefs we all got the same very wet day today! It rained continually and quite heavily with a moderate wind blowing the rain across the more open sections of the trail. One way or another and despite my brolly and cagoule everything seemed to end up damp.

Generally the Camino was following woodland trails that wove along the main Santiago to Lugo road. Little of significance to report before my lunch stop at the 15 Kilometre Cafe which was about 11km from my start point.

After that it was 5km skirting round Santiago Airport to the Albergue in Lavacolla. I arrived by 1pm to find it did not open until 2pm. So, I spent a damp hour under a shop awning chatting to three pilgrims from South Korea who were also waiting and quite cheerful in the circumstances.

Tanya and Stein also showed up and once sorted in the Albergue we decided to eat in and I offered to cook my chorizo and bean stew. The little shop over the road was well stocked so we got the necessary food just in time as at 3pm they were unusually closing until the morning.