Camino Day Twenty Four

Thursday, June 14, 2012
Trabadelo to Fonfria
30.4 km (20.8 miles)

morning photo in Trabadelo

The person on the left side of the picture is an old lady who was practically marching down the road! Then there are some other pilgrims on the right side of the picture, dressed in walking attire, while the Spanish lady was wearing a skirt and blouse.

From my journal: Today was another long day, mileage-wise. I was not happy today. It started when we were about to leave the bar where we ate lunch. Bridget mentioned a 2.5 [km] climb up still & I thought we were already at the highest point of the day. It was true, Bridget was right--which also meant that we had 14.5 km to go instead of 12.5. Ugh.

From my journal: We did have incredible views today. We started out in a valley--sort of like the hollars at home--then began to climb through a forest, which was nice. Very AT-like. Even though we still had to ascend after lunch, we had an amazing view to the other side once we peaked the mountain. 

We are at ~1,200 meters (over 3,900 feet) above sea level here. We are leaving the region of Castilla y Leon and about to enter Galicia.

a distance marker, which reads K151,5 (151.5 km or ~94 miles to Santiago!)

This sign indicated that the CNO STGO was to the right. For those of you who are as bright as my husband, I'm sorry to explain it. For those of you who are dim as I am, "CNO STGO" is the Camino de Santiago.

Someone had "vandalized" this camino sign and drawn angel wings on the image of the peregrino. I was grumpy and drinking a beer and thought it was appropriate to get a picture of feisty me next to the angelic sign.

not an uncommon view for us

Monumento do Peregrino

near Alto San Roque

My "bad day" continued with me getting frustrated with the guy who ran the albergue where we ended up for the night. He insisted it would be too confusing for the cook to make me a meal (off their menu, I want to add) instead of me ordering the pilgrim's meal. Then they wanted to charge Adam for wifi, which was not really standard practice in albergues, so that was also frustrating. We were both annoyed with that albergue.

I took a nap, and Adam went to the other place in town to figure out our supper. It is a casa rural, and is more like a bed and breakfast, I think (private rooms, more expensive, etc.) The woman who ran Casa Nunez treated us like royalty. (Or, the way Americans are used to being treated in most establishments, which = the customer is always right. What can I say? We are spoiled. Anyway....) We had a wonderful meal at Casa Nunez. Mine consisted of the following:

First course: a salad of fresh tomatoes, onions, olives, and goat cheese

Second course: two fried eggs over easy, fries, two roasted red peppers (pimientos), and a large slice of hard cheese

Dessert: tarta de Santiago (a dense almond cake), but I was also offered cheese with honey as an alternative

From my journal: I told Adam that if I wasn't vegan I would have thought I had died and gone to heave with all the cheese she put before me tonight :)

We were the only customers eating there, so Adam asked the matron to switch the channel from a telenovela (soap opera) to the football/soccer game. They were communicating in Spanish, and at some point she said, "Soup? You want soup? We have lots of kinds of soup..." Poor Adam just wanted to watch the Euro Cup. He started to make signs with his fingers like a person running, then he raised his arms above his head and called out, "GOAL!" She got it then and changed the channel for us.

So the night ended well, but I did mention in my journal that I couldn't wait to "scoot out of this town!"