Villamartin Grande-Gondan- SanXusto- Lourenza-Mondonedo   Walk Day 28

15.5 miles, 2,389′ elevation

Today I left the coast for the duration of the sojourn. That bums me out although it was a good day today. A driver from the tour company picked me up from Hotel EO, in Ribadeo and dropped me off where he picked me up yesterday, in Villamartin. 

I left the sea and entered the mountains. The overcast sky and a few rain drops presented great climbing weather. A thick forest of pine and eucalyptus with fern and vines of all kinds beneath. Throughout the morning I kept hearing gun fire. What sounded to my uneducated gun ears as shotgun blasts. Some far off and intermittently some pretty close. This gave me a few uncertain moments: was I walking into a seasonal hunting zone?

At the small farm hamlet of Gondan, I stopped at a corner house cafe and had an expresso y aqua pequena. I asked the bar keep and owner; “Que es disparer?”  What is the shooting? But really, literally I think I said; What is the shot? He clearly understood, and as I was attempting to explain a shot rang out and I pointed. He spoke quickly as most people here do. More like passionately. Anyway, he said something that sounded like 

“Disparon peregrino!” Which I interpreted as “They shoot pilgrims!”  Which was clearly in no guidebook I’d read, so I asked “Que?” What?” And he repeated more slowly; “Cerdo! Picureeno!”   I eventually looked it up and they were hunting small pig! 

This took my hiking thoughts to a recurrent theme in my life of “pigs”.  With an occasional, minor run in in my youth and later with Policemen. The P.I.G.S.-Polish-Irish-German-Society of my long time friends. And the couple of encounters in the Island of Serendipity. Playing the National Police Basketball team in Columbo, Sri Lanka for the Island Championship in 1985.( “the war within the war game”) And my near miss, running from wild boar outside Annaradnapura in the jungle along the levie. And finally, the story the Park Ranger told JP and I at Tiger Tops Natural Presevere in Southern Nepal about the Boar kicking the Bengal Tiger’s ass and being the dominant predator in the park and no one would pay to see the staked goat eaten by the 450 pound boar.