A short hike through the woods

 Hey all, Mitch here. Today's walk took us from Triacastela to Sarria. We actually had two different paths available. One went south a bit, stayed along roads, and was around 7 KM longer. It did go through the Monastary town of Samos, but as all of us much prefer dirt paths to walking along the road, we instead opted to take the northern path.

This route opened with a bit of a climb, but compared to the mountain we climbed up just two days ago, it was a far easier hike. Additionally, both on the way up and on the way down the state of the trail was quite good, which made for much easier walking.

As we get closer and closer to the coast, the flora we're walking by is definitely getting greener and more lush. We're even starting to regularly see moss, ferns, and ivy, which are great reminders of home.

In addition to great green trees, climbing up these hills also got us some great long views. Honestly the scenery since O Cebreiro has really been breathtaking, we've had much more clear long views than even the ones that we had in the Pyrenees.

At the end of the day we reached Sarria, the largest town that we've stayed in since León:

Since it was a shorter walk that some of the ones we've done recently, we were actually able to get into town by Noon, which gave us plenty of time to rest our feet, do some laundry, and get some tasty lunch. Getting closer and closer to the coast, Seafood is becoming more and more prevalent in the quisine. Given that we've been following road signs with scallop shells on them and have had scallop shells on our backpacks, it only seemed proper to get some to eat:

They were very tasty.

Now comes the final stretch, and since Sarria sits just over 100KM from Santiago, it's also the starting place for a lot of pilgrims. We've been seeing more and more pilgrim traffic over the last week, and expect to see an explosion of pilgrims starting tomorrow.

The Descent

 Hello. It’s Phil.

So there’s this mountain that, as you see in the previous blog, poses a significant challenge. Today was the over the mountain and down phase. Since most of this walk overlooks scenic valleys and vistas, the posted photos may look similar. I do think that the photos just don’t do  a full job of capturing the breathtaking beauty of the landscape. As we walk along, you are tempted to snap a picture every few steps.

I was happy to complete this stage because the guidebook emphasizes being careful when descending since there a number of steep places. We endured, showed caution, and triumphed in the end. 

We are now in the town of Triacastela. Everyone is tired after several long days of walking the Camino. Spirits are high as we see our distance from Santiago getting shorter. 

The Mountain.

 Hi, it is Bob blogging again. Today is the hobgoblin of my nightmares of the Camino. The climb to O'Cebreiro is the biggest challenge after the first day with Foncebadon being the third worst. We have already transcended the first two, so now we had to do the big one. It is a long stage - 18 miles and then it is the biggest climb since St. Jean, Pied de Port. nearly 3000 feet from a 1800 foot base elevation. The path is 16 to18%

grade for 5 miles. After much trepidation it was gratefully accomplished. The climb was tough, and Kim was the king of the mountains and now wears the polka dot jersey into the finishline at Santiago, but the rest of us mules get the badge of having accomplished the stage.

All along the route today were cats and freeways. Mitch took pictures of the cats and the freeways soared to greater and greater heights as we climbed (spoiler alert: the freeway climbed away from us).

The scenery from the top is amazing. You feel like you are on top of the world with 500 of you best friends and acquaintances and about another 1000 newcomers you have never seen before. This is because the first 70 percent of the camino are people who have walked from St. Jean in France, the same as us. Now, there are many more who have just joined. The completion certificate only requires that a pilgrim walk the last 100 km of the camino. For bikers, 200 km, and they can ride those no effort electronic bikes and horseback riders can get by with 200 km also, but they don't have to pickup their horses**t that the walkers have to navigate around. 

Near the top of the climb, we finally crossed out of the autonomous political arena of Castilla y León into the Automous political arena of Galicia. We spent three days in Navarre, four days in La Rioja, and since then, 21 days in Castillia y León. Now, finally, for the last 8 days, we will be in Galicia. 

Tonight, on the top of the world, we attended a pilgrim church service in O'Cebreiro that happens every evening during the pilgrim season. It was a normal short form Catholic mass. It is in Spanish, but it was encouraging to me that every segment of the service was similar to our Lutheran service. we had a greeting, opening prayer, lesson, homily, words of intinction, Lords prayer, Lamb of God, communion, closing, benediction, etc. Then all the pilgrims gathered around the altar and There was a special sending in all represented languages for us. The priest asked what languages were present, got out his book and each language sent a representative to read the sending for their language group along the road to Santiago. Each pilgrim was given a pebble by the priest to carry to Santiago. we all gave up our imported rocks at Cruz de Ferro, and now we have a new burden to carry to the finish line for our pilgrimage.

This has been a very fulfilling and successful day.

Grapes of Spain

 As we walk through Spain we are grateful to the many Spanish people we have encountered; they are gracious and have a beautiful and clean country.  

In at least most of the parts of the cities we have traveled they run street sweepers every day. 

Today we walked through the city of Ponferrada and saw the Castle de los Templarios. 

 

The pilgrims Phil, Bob, and Mitch crossing the bridge in 

Ponferrada.

But the best part of today’s walk was the path through the fields of grapevines and chatting with other pilgrims along the way.

Tonight we rest in Villafranca del Bierzo.

Posted by Kim

In the Quiet, Misty Morning

 Hey all, Mitch here again. Seeing as we reached one of the highest points on the Camino today, and with it one of the most famous landmarks along the route, we decided to wake up early to get there in time for the sunrise. Our hosts graciously packed us a picnic breakfast to enable us leaving so early, and we set out. If you paid attention to the title, you may see where this is going though, here's a shot of the sunrise we were able to see from Cruz de Ferro, as well as a group shot there:

As you can see, the weather did not cooperate with our brilliant plan, so instead of a gorgeous mountaintop sunrise, we instead got a misty morning. It was still very peaceful, and our windbreakers and ponchos kept us plenty warm and dry in the end. The crossing over the top of Alto Altar was full of some great misty forests and some gorgeous blooming mountain flowers, all made more ethereal by the ever-present mist.

Finally, after a rather steep and treacherous descent from the peak (of around 500 meters, 1,640 feet for the metric impaired) we stopped to enjoy our picnic breakfast and get some Coffee in the town of Acebo.

By the time we had finished eating, enjoying a hot beverage, and getting geared back up to walk the rest of the way, the combination of time and lower altitude meant that we finally started to get longer and longer views towards our destination. The rest of the day involved several more relatively steep descents, bringing us down from a peak altitude of 1,515 meters to a mere 600, a couple of hundred meters lower altitude than we've been for weeks.

Since we were now of the windward side of the mountains we crossed, the vegetation also showed signs of being used to a less arid climate, with some areas feeling almost Seattle-like in their mossyness:

We're definitely still somewhere more arid than home though, as most of the hills looked more like this:

At the end of our long descent though, we made it to our destination for tonight, the lovely town of Molinaseca. Our early start this morning meant we made it all the way there by Noon, which has left a lot of time this afternoon for lunch and relaxation. We'll need it, as the final big climb of the trip is now only two days away. I'll leave you with a picture of Molinaseca that I was able to get as we descended into town.

Moving Up in the World

 Astorga was a great little town. We left this morning and headed west towards the mountains. The first ten or eleven miles were through country roads with small towns. The terrain turns upward for our last four to five miles, ending in the mountain town of Foncebadon. Today was a challenging stage with some climbing in the latter part of the day. Still, there was something satisfying about making it up the ascent stage and reflecting on how far we have come. We celebrated our progress with a beer toast.

The end of the world as we have know it

 This is Bob blogging. I realized in looking back through my posts that I haven't been forthcoming with that information and I don't know why. 

Today we had a relatively short stage from Hospital de Orbiga to Astorga. We also left the Meseta behind and entered the Galician foothills. For ten days the high central plain of Spain was our environment and now, nothing much is flat. As Phil highlighted yesterday, Orbigo is the site of great chivalrous honor. The stage was an opportunity to reconnect with several individuals and groups we have met along the way. We had some wonderful chats with many different people as we walked along. My goodness, the time passes much more quickly that way.

Astorga is the site of the historical Roman Catholic Church's power in northwestern Spain. The Bishop was here and this is where St. James (the 23rd) came on pilgrimage in the 10th century and started this whole craze of marching to Santiago (St. James) as a mendicant. The cathedral is interesting, but after Burgos and León, no great shakes.

Next to the cathedral is a Bishop's palace designed and built by Gaudi, the famous Spanish Architect. It is quite amazing and worth visiting - as compared to the Cathedral.

The cathedral has an incredible collection of Bishop's garments, crooks, processional crosses, retableaus, etc. It is a great place to come and study the trappings of the church, the artistry of the church, the grandure of the Bishopric, etc, but not a good place to come and be amazed by the spirit of the church.

Along the walk today was a very long (for the Camino) segment with no town or opportunity to stop for coffee and treats or sandwiches. Suddenly, we stumbled across a wayside caravan run be refugees from hte hippie culture of the late 60's. They were all young and there was a sign (in Spanish) that said: "Take what you need, relax your tiredness and leave what you don't need along with enough to help us keep this alive.

There was coffee, teas, fruit, organic cereals and munchies, lots of paisley and comfortable couches. A Big Sur roadside stop if ever I've stumbled into one. Phill even got to strum on a guitar. That location felt more honest and nurturing than everything we saw at Astorga around the Bishop's regalia and domicile.

Tomorrow we head out on one of the most challenging stages of the Camino. We will climb steadily through 18 miles up 1500 ft to Foncebadon. These are the times that try men's souls.