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!"

Camino Day Twenty Three

Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Ponferrada to Trabadelo
32.6 km (20 1/4 miles)

The morning sun was BRIGHT when this picture was taken! I think my eyes were closed, but the morning picture must happen, so there it is.

Castillo de los Temlparios (Templar Castle)

Ponferrada, El Bierzo, Spain

From our guidebook: "The magnificent 12th century Templar castle has been declared a national monument and recently reopened after extensive renovations. Ponferrada came under the protectorate of teh Templar Order by decree of King Fernando II in 1178. Their official presence here was short lived as the Order was outlawed in 1312 and disbanded by a Church fearful of their increasing power and esoteric tradition."

Stork in its nest

The little white specks are a bunch of storks in a field

We stopped in this winery to use their bathroom. I was very grateful!

vineyards

cherries being harvested

That is Adam, walking through the narrow, cobbled streets of Villafranca de Bierzo. The orange piece of paper you can see on the closest door was a "For sale" sign, which was posted on a majority of those doors. We talked/dreamed of coming back and owning a place there someday!

The previous three or four pictures are Villafranca de Bierzo, and I believe the next four are as well.

This is a view of Villafranca de Bierzo behind us. We hiked on through the town, past the group with which we had been walking, to make up some miles and get to Santiago in a week (and by my birthday, which is June 20th).

zooming in to that view in the previous picture

We walked out of the town and along a road. We got to a point where we had to turn, and I was very grateful we went right, because if we went left, we would have gone on the highway through a tunnel, pictured below. We were just walking on the side of a small highway instead (no tunnel, much safer, right?).

We pushed on past a couple of towns and ended up at this albergue. I'll let my journal fill you in on some details of our stay there: 

Today was Grandma Elaine's birthday. I think she would have been 91 this year. 

We did a long day today. More than 30k--I think I heard someone say 32. Although he went a different way than we did. He is a guy from Belgium (Guy is his name) who has walked from Brussels. I can't understand everything he says, but his English is pretty good and it's peppered with French, so I get that. It seemed like his life was a mess when he started (Apr. 19)--what I caught is that one or two ppl died, his wife left, someone else attempted (or succeeded at) committing suicide. He sounds like he is in a really good place now, and he wants to get a new backpack and travel the rest of the world after finishing the camino.

This Brazilian (I think) older woman came up to me while I was cooking tonight (lentil stew, again, but thankfully not pasta again--we've had pasta 3 or 4 nights in a row, and i just did not feel inspired @ all by the tiny "supermercado" here in town) and told me it smelled great. It totally made up for the old women from 2 nights ago, who got annoyed when I tried to help wash and dry dishes.

The last couple of mornings we have not left until 8:00. It actually feels too late to me. We still need to make up a day, and right now we are a little further than the "stages" in the book, so we are doing ok.

I guess you can tell that some of the other pilgrims and the food that was available (or not available) were starting to wear on me!

Camino Day Twenty One

Monday, June 11, 2012

Astorga to Foncebadon

26.9 km (16 3/4 miles)

Morning photo in Astorga

The way goes past this store. At the bottom of the window sign it says "Buen Camino!"

Many pilgrims stopped here to get some hot food for breakfast.

 I am not sure it is visible in the photo, but there is a rainbow in that gray sky in the center of the photo.

From my journal: We walked in the rain today, more rain than we have seen so far. It was cold, too. 

Today we saw at least three rainbows. It was so great. Interesting too, b/c the posts with the shells on them also have rainbows painted on them.

lavender plants (I think, correct me if I'm wrong)

You can see a stork's nest in the steeple here. We saw tons of these nests, perched high above us, and often on relatively small platforms.

Some blue sky on a rainy day

Dinner at the parochial albergue. See that HUGE pot of spaghetti on the right?! 

The guy on the left is from Costa Rica and the young lady is our friend Erle, a Norwegian student who is traveling all over the world during her gap year.

One big happy family, eating dinner together!

From my journal: Just 9 more days until we reach Santiago, 9 days until my b-day. We have been in Spain 3 weeks now, I think. Crazy! It seems like its been forever. 

We have had dinner and everyone is settling in. Adam went to watch the [football] game with Erle. Dinner was amazing, and they offered a couple of vegetarian options for me (salad sin atun!). I am in a bit of an odd mood--there are 2 older ladies here who I feel don't like me. But one of the women from Greenland just gave me some cookies--it all works out, I guess :) 

The mother and daughter from Greenland were tense, as their items had bedbugs, and the girl lost something (I can't remember what, but they found it). They were still cordial with us and eventually worked things out between them, but the tension between them made it a bit awkward. The comment about the ladies who did not like me was in reference to these ladies who are probably in their 60's or 70's. When Adam and I were helping prepare the meal, one of them made a comment in Spanish about my lack of vegetable-cutting skills. It felt like we were teenagers and they were just trying to get under my skin. Later, they were washing dishes and I was trying to help, but I think I was splashing water all over the place, and they took the dishwashing back from me. Adam had his own issues with them the next morning.

It was at this albergue that we met a French guy who was running the trail and was planning to travel back to get married in France after his camino. His fiancee is American, and they live in California. We also got to know a Spanish lady (in the blue, behind Adam in that picture just above) who was walking with the lady in red (I think). We talked about reaching the Cruz de Ferro (iron cross) the next morning and the stones we carried with us to leave there (Adam's was from his med school campus). The Spanish lady said, "You are supposed to bring a rock that is equal to the burdens you bear in this world. Bigger rock means bigger burdens. Me? I don't have burdens. So I will pick up a rock here tomorrow to leave at the Cruz de Ferro." 

This albergue is located in the mountains, and we were very cold there, as we had hiked in the rain. This was one of our coldest nights. I think many of our bunkmates tossed and turned and didn't get quality sleep.

Camino Day Eighteen

Friday, June 8, 2012

Mansillas de las Mulas to Leon

Cathedral in Leon

preschool children playing in front of the cathedral in Leon

A protest in Leon. I had my earplugs in my jacket pocket, so I stuck those in my ears, and it was still too loud, with horns and loud gun shots.

The morning photo--oops! Forgot to take it that morning. After this we had an amazing meal at a L'Union, a vegetarian restaurant. We both were extremely satisfied with our meals there. 

We had supper at an Indian restaurant with ten or so other pilgrims who were also looking for some different food. We met four pilgrims that night who we had never met before: a woman and her mother from Greenland, M from Denmark, and Jenny from Germany. Our albergue had a closing time of 9:30 (this was a Friday night, in a city--eek!), and we got our food at about 9. We gobbled it down, then rushed back to the albergue...and of course they didn't close the doors until after 10 pm. 

Gaudi building in Leon