The bad weather interrupted our programme again today. Once again we had to cut the front section and started walking from Melide for 20.44km to Arzua. The route saw quite a number of up and downs with particularly sharp descents in two locations. Rain brought lots of mud to the paths and tracks and that took some joy out of the walking. Not forgetting that when the paths and tracks are muddy, it is very difficult to differentiate dung from mud and I really do not relish stepping on poo! Since Sarria we have noticed an enormous increase of dung on the route. Along with it comes the smell of it too. We were fortunate that we missed the section that many have described that “it stings to high heaven”, but … we did pass it in the taxi on the way to our start at Melide and it really did stink to high heaven. Well, it is not always foul smelling, we walked through a plantation of eucalyptus trees and the air was filled with beautiful eucalyptus scent. As I had mentioned before, the landscape changed when we crossed over to Galicia. The land is very green due to the often wet weather and as a result there is a greater variety of flora and fauna. This makes walking more interesting and of course the pace slows because of more photo opportunities. I was told that from Sarria to Santiago de Compostela the route is easy. We are now 3 days into this route and we are still faced with steep ups and downs. Poor Steven, the steep downs really do not do his blisters and aching feet any good. Arzua has a population of 6,633 so it is a town. Being Sunday, almost all the shops are closed. We booked ourselves into an Albergue but they put us up in an apartment instead. That was nice because we were able to cook dinner without having to queue up to use the kitchen BUT, the apartment had no heating. The weather has not only been wet, it has also been very cold and windy. It was so cold that we decided to move all the beds into one room, so the five of us were in one room instead of two. That helped. Warmth was also generated by a huge laughing session we had when Joy decided to use her sleeping bag as well (she brought along a sleeping bag for -10 weather conditions!) and zipped herself in very securely. One minute she looked like a huge black worm (that scared Li Leng of course) and another minute she looked like an Egyptian Mummy! I started writing my blog but the cold got to me and I had to get under the blankets. So I logged off and went to bed.