From Samos to Barbadelo Via Sarria

We were awoken at 7 AM with beautiful music by Vivaldi - just as the warden had promised us the night before. How pleasant to wake up to lovely music!
After packing up and saying goodbye to all my new friends, I set out to reach Barbadelo, so I could get to Portomarin the following day. Again there were 2 routes to choose from, and I wanted the longer one, and not the one that went along the road to Sarria. I found the little path going off to the right following the yellow arrows. It was a lovely walk along pathways and small country roads, but it felt quite a lot longer than the 12 km my guidebook claimed. When I finally reached the outskirts of Sarria I went in to the tourist office to get a stamp and an extension for my pilgrim's passport, as I was running out of pages. I asked her about the distance from Samos to Sarria, and she confirmed that it was 12 km, if you walked along the road, and more like 15 or 16 km if you took the paths. It made me feel a lot better, and made a lot more sense!
I met Esther whom I met Samos last nigh outside. She was going to stop here, and give herself a break, because she was having trouble with her legs, and was worn down. I was happy to see she was taking care of herself, and wished her a nice rest, and hoped to see her in Santiago!
Then I continued on up to the old, and quite lovely part of Sarria. I was wondering if I should stay, but decided to stick to my original plan, in spite of the extra km. As I was going out past the albergues I met Nina, whom I had just met the night before at the monastery. She was heading out also, so we ended up walking together, chatting and almost missing a turn - a nice elderly Spanish man called out to alert us - pilgrims on the wrong track - and pointed us in the right direction! It's so nice how the locals were looking out for us, and made sure we didn't go off track!
We walked the 1 1/2 hour to Barbadelo, and found the little private albergue I had read about. We were the first ones there, and soon we were checked in and getting settled. Later we were joined by 3 older guys, 2 French and 1 Polish - they were business friends. All of them spoke English, so we could talk without problems, and they were really nice and considerate.
Nina had bought food and some small containers of wine for a before-dinner drink, so she invited me to share her meal, and I was happy to accept! For my part of the meal I offered to go up and see if I could buy a bottle of red wine from the only restaurant in the tiny village. Even though it was closed until it reopened for dinner at 8 PM, I was bold and walked in, finding the woman of the house busy cleaning the kitchen. She only hesitated for a moment, then agreed to sell me a bottle for 5 Euros. Then I walked back to the albergue, and we rested until it was time to go for the 7 PM mass in the little church. There was not a single local, just a few pilgrims - I can't say I blame the locals, it was a very uninspired old, tired priest!
I was hungry, and so was Nina, so we set out the spread, as the guys got ready to go up to the restaurant for their dinner. We had bread, cheese, dried ham, olives and octopus in olive oil - and plenty of red wine! We were in bed before the guys got back from dinner, falling asleep after a long day!