Remy’s 2023 Travel Notebook

4 more walking days until Santiago. We are almost exactly 100km from our endpoint today. The Group has reserved much of the last 4 days in albergues and we will stick together. I feel thankful to be so close to such a group of people. Two young honeymooners from France, two Germans, two Italians, and a Spaniard from Canary Islands (plus the American). All great people and so fun to be around. We are already talking about a “reunion” of sorts in the coming year(s). Some of the group (most haven’t been to the US) have a particular interest in hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail in California. I assure them that if they visit, a trip will be organized.

We just walked from Samos to Morgade. On one rest stop I had a big bed bug fall off of either my clothes or backpack and explode with blood when I stepped on it. I felt itchy for the rest of the day thinking about the bugs. When we got to the albergue, we kept everything outside and tore our bags apart to find about 30 more bed bugs between the 8 of us. We scoured every millimeter of our bags, clothes and items for 2 hours.

After inspecting each item it would be placed in a black garbage bag to bake in the Spanish sun for another couple hours before being machine washed.

I couldn’t find any more bugs after the washing and drying and we are keeping our fingers crossed.

On another note, the albergue we had today was so cool! Our beds and room were so clean, and we had an awesome living room with a TV and couches.

Some pictures from our walk today…

Today (the 17th), my dad will join us in the evening. Should be interesting adding him to this goofy group! He had a flight delay that caused him to leave a day late. He will still be able to walk with us for 3 days and stay the night in Santiago when we all arrive. Buen Camino!