I left Palas de Rei in the dark at 08:20. The weather cooperated at first, but then it started to pour. The path was mud or a stream. My gear held up for awhile, but eventually the strong rain found its way into my socks and boots after a couple hours. I stopped off under a patio tent of a closed restaurant by the side of the trail. Eventually an old English guy around 70 stopped under the tent. He only had one arm, so he needed me to grab his water bottle off of his pack, then return it when he was done. He told me he left St. Jean Pied de Port on January 1st.
I pushed on through the rain until I got to Melide. I was wet and miserable. Walking through Melide, I saw a laundromat right along the Camino. The reception guy at Hotel Mica told me about this laundromat in Melide when he told me his hotel did not have laundry service. I decided to get out of the rain and do a load of laundry, thinking maybe the rain would stop and I could continue walking later. The rain did get lighter by the time my laundry was dry a little over an hour later.
I continued my walk, but eventually the cold rain started coming down again. I walked up and down hills and through hamlets, counting down the miles to Arzua. About three kilometers outside Arzua, Mario caught up with me, and we walked the rest of the way into town together. He said he tried octopus for the first time in Melide. He said it tasted like lamb. He also said he sat out the rain in the Melide library. We stopped at the Xunta in Arzua. Mario chose to stay there. I did not want to stay there because there was no WiFi access. I decided to grab a private room at Pension Luis a few blocks away.
