What an exhilarating morning! I left my albergue in the village of Ventas de Naron--actually more an outpost than a village--at around 7:30 this morning and it was socked in by dense fog. It was moody, evocative and beautiful, with grey wetness dripping off the cluster of moss-covered stone and slate buildings. Shortly after my departure the sun started burning off the fog, and as it broke through, a golden glow lit up the forest. Blue sky appeared overhead. And then I rounded a bend, the view opened up, and it was breathtaking. A stream of clouds was flowing through the valley, and another ridge across the valley became visible, lit up high above the clouds. Instead of appearing to float in a sea, as I've described before, this time it seemed as if the mountaintop was floating in the sky. It was difficult to catch on camera, looking directly into the sun. But I stopped in my tracks, as did three other walkers, and we watched as the clouds floated through, and then after about five minutes they were suddenly gone, and the opposite ridge was completely visible. An amazing ephemeral moment. The next group of walkers would have no idea what they had missed.

I had a really enjoyable wine-fueled dinner/evening last night with three charming and funny maniacs. There was a 20 year old guy from Copenhagen, a German woman living in Austria who had turned 24 the previous day, and a 38 year old guy from Finland, uncharacteristically dark-skinned because his mother was Sri Lankan. They've been traveling more or less together since the Pyrenees. Maniacs because they're on course to finish the Camino in 22 days, the fastest I've heard yet. That's more than 23 miles a day, every day, without fail. I think they might be from a different species than I am. We hit it off talking across tables and they invited me to join them. I asked them what they did at home and found out that after 20 days together they had no idea what each other did. I couldn't tell if their communications just happened to be about the Camino, logistics, where to stop, etc., or if they were consciously avoiding knowing what the others did in "real" life. The 20 year old was a business student, the 24 year old a graduate student in clinical psychology, and the 38 year old works promoting the Finnish semi-state-run casino system. It was a riot hearing them interact after finding out what each of them did. The psych student was playfully riding the biz student and both of them were all over the casino guy. They all said they were so tired they weren't really hungry, and they picked at their food but they had no problem downing the wine. They were going to get up at 4 this morning because they wanted to walk 30 miles today. Wow.

My comparatively dinky little walk of 8 miles was like a stroll in the garden. Not much uphill or down, easy, through forest and farms once again. I finished early and easily, even wanting more, and I'm now on the outskirts of Palas de Rei in a farmhouse-turned-pension. But it's good for me to do this series of short days. I feel good and strong and excited, and I'm raring to go. I have two more short days coming up, each about 8 miles or so, and then two final 12+ mile days into Santiago. Hard to believe I'm so close.