Hannah:

Oh man… When I think of this day I can feel the exhaustion again.

On day 5 we walked from O’Cebreiro to Triacastela. A long day of 24km. We could not believe it when we finished just how far we went because we thought it was supposed to be shorter! We spent a lot more of the day going up than we anticipated. We were under the impression that all the uphill was the day before, so that meant today was cruising downhill. Boy were we wrong. The uphill never ended and we spent most of our day sharing the same feeling over and over, “I thought we were supposed to go down! Why are we still going up?” We just could never understand it.

I carried my son again, so now I had carried him two days in a row, while my stroller was shuttled ahead. With my son, supplies and he other items I had to move from the stroller to my pack, I was carrying about 40lbs of weight. I was NOT a fan. But, by the grace of God I had enough strength to get through the day.

Near the end, about 5km away from our destination we started going down. It was getting late so we decided I would go ahead to get dinner started and hopefully my Dad would be there soon after. During my descent I decided to jog down. Call me crazy, but I always find going downhill is easier while jogging than walking. A lady I passed couldn’t believe it. When I saw her the next day she said she tried it too and also found it easier! However I did have the added motivation to get out of the rain, too.

As I came into town it poured and poured rain with plenty of thunder. My poor dad got stuck in it for quite a while and was drenched by the time he arrived. It really didn’t help us feel any better by the end of such a long day. Lastly, our hostel messed up the reservation so we ended up getting a second bed squeezed into the room. Thankfully they were so kind and helpful and we all managed to have a good sleep.

Day 5 was definitely the longest, hardest and maybe most eventful day so far.

Please keep the prayers coming! Please know I do see the comments, I just have to figure out how to respond. But thank you everyone for your kind words of encouragement! It means a lot to us and we love to read them all.

God bless,

Hannah, Tony + Baby