Trail Life – Day 1

Our group is in surprisingly good spirits this morning, given that we are checking out of a luxury hotel and heading out, on foot, into the unknown. We’ve downsized our luggage into two small day packs, leaving the rest here for when we return. For $4/day, it is possible to have a shuttle service take your bags to your next stop, but we’re not quite sure how that works on the last day when you actually need to get it back to where you started. If we were going for longer we’d spend the time to figure it out but, given there are towns every few miles and places to stay every night, we’re confident we can manage with pretty limited supplies.

As with all long distance hikes, plenty of happy, optimistic pictures to kick things off – including the only know photo in existence of my trail partner with her backpack on her back – then slowly becoming fewer a further between and reality sets in and the mood becomes a little less jovial. That said, as we walk through the countryside, it is hard not to appreciate what we have the opportunity here to see.

Our first stop is in the small town of Negreira. We’re past the age where we need to crash on a bunk in a dormitory, but accommodations are the trail are still a little spartan. After 12 miles though one cares about such things a whole lot less.