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[July 2011 - adding Friday, June 25th & Saturday, June 26th that were not included because of lack of computer access]

Samos to Ferreiros (Friday, June 25th)
We left our beautiful alburgue in Samos early. There was a nice little park between the road and a little river down below with the seemingly requisite pilgrim statue in it on the way out of town.


A lot of the early part of today's walking was wooded and cool. It is very beautiful and, again, almost as if we are walking in a fairytale land. One expects elves or gnomes or some other mythic creatures to appear at almost any time from out behind the trees. Is it any wonder when there are trees like this as part of our journey this day? When I came up to this tree, I stopped to read the sign. And as I stood there, I heard a groan. For a moment, I truly considered the possibility that it was the tree groaning. Wouldn't you? I looked at the tree very hard, expecting to see a face in it somewhere and almost expecting it next to speak, like something out of a movie. Then, I slowly started to walk around the tree on the trail - only to find a pilgrim laid out on the ground, stretching and resting, and groaning! I laughed to myself, and I was glad that I hadn't been on canded camera (or maybe I was!) There is lots of flora to look at, if not so much fauna. We hear the birds calling in the woods.



Though much of our walking this morning was in woods, we did occasionally come across a lone Galician farmhouse or a small village, which generally reminded us of just how poor this area is. The farmer who lives in this house was not far away and I tried to take this picture without him seeing me because I was self-conscious of taking it. I can't imagine living in a house in the condition this one is in. But perhaps the man cannot imagine living any other way, I don't know. This second picture was taken at a much nicer house that had a sign reading "rectory." I have no idea if it means the same thing there or not. The house happened to sit at a choice in paths and the signs were less than helpful to a number of us pilgrims who gathered trying to discern which way to go. While the others tried to figure it out, I decided to take a picture of this traditional Galician cart. Stella caught up to me a few minutes after all the other pilgrims took off in one of the directions and we followed. A short while later, we posed by yet another kind of Camino sign while another pilgrim took our picture:






We enter the city of Sarria a little while later. They are doing a lot of construction on the street on which we enter. There is a Visitor's Office, so we go in and get a map, which is helpful. A picture on the map shows that they have a Corpus Christi flower display here, too. Sarria is an interesting looking city. the first part is fairly flat, and then it becomes the city of 69,000 steps (only a slight exaggeration!) At the bridge where we cross the river (Rio Sarria), there are lots of caravans that look like they they are sort of permanently set up, but they are not open for business right now and the flaps are all pulled down. We have also noticed electric decorations across a lot of the streets. Apparently they have festivals and a fair at least once a month with all of these vendors. They have also just had a major festival as we find out when we duck into a church and they are just putting away one of those wagons with figures on it. On the other side of the river is where we begin all of the steps, and if it isn't steps, it is a very steep incline up the Calle Mayor. At one point, we pause for a breather and talk to a nice guy who snaps our picture. At the very top, we are at least rewarded with a beautiful view of the city below at the Praza San Roque. It's funny. You probably expected that to be Plaza, but it really is Praza. The dialects and spellings have changed several times as we have hiked through provinces and regions and peoples. Keeps pilgrims on their toes!


From Sarria, we head back into the countryside again. As I enter one small village, it is apparently time for the cows to come home. The path I am walking on is perhaps five or six feet wide and defined by stacked rock walls on either side. The cows are in a small field, also defined by rock walls around it, ahead off to the left. The farmer has come to call the cows with her trusty herding dog, opens the gate, then turns and heads back up the path. Most of the cows are smart enough to come back out the gate onto the path, turn left and head back up to the barn-house for milking or feeding or whatever normally awaits them this time of day. But not one lone cow who decides to rebel! She will have none of this following the herd mentality today! She wants to turn right and come down the path towards me! Aaagh! I stop in my tracks while I'm watching all this happen. I can see myself getting flattened into a pancake against the rock wall by this 800 pounds of bovine tempest ahead of me and I'm not enthralled with that prospect. But the dog will brook no rebels this day (or probably any other, either). The dog is firm and keeps barking and running around in front of the cow, nipping at the cow's hooves, not letting the cow go the way it wants to go. The cow bellows. The dog growls. The cow stomps. The dog barks louder. I still haven't moved, because there really isn't anywhere for me to go. And - I'm mesmerized! Finally, the dog gets the upper paw and the cow caves. The cow goes running back to catch up with the others. One can almost hear the dog going "Yes!" rather gloatingly. All in a day's work. I was too busy being mesmerized to get any good pictures of it, but I did get this fine fellow strutting and crowing his stuff as I passed a farm:

Not long after, I pass this very important marker. It is the 100 kilometer marker. That's all the further we have to Santiago!!! Hard to believe, from that first sign we saw at Roncevalles for 870 kilometers. Wow. In order to receive the Compostela, the special certificate, pilgrims have to physically walk the last 100 kilometers. (or do whatever means they are claiming) Another way to look at it is, you only have to do 100 km to get the certificate, which is what some people do, so the traffic picks up a lot from this point on. They actually have "police" checking to see that nobody cheats! So all the rest of what we have walked is icing on the cake in once sense, but for us, we have the experiences, the graces, the strength we have gained, the personal satisfaction of having walked the hundreds of miles that have preceded these last 62 or so. I have my two little rocks from Jerry Hall road with me. And I pull one out and place it on top of the marker. It's the little one on the very top, just to the left of center. This marker, too, makes it very real that our adventure is beginning to come to an end. We're not quite sure we want to think about that just yet.


Not too long before I reach our destination for the night, I come to a woodsy area that has a creek running through it. The creek is shallow but very broad. The people who maintain the Camino have come up with an intriguing solution for the path to keep our feet dry!
Not long after, I enter the little village of Ferreiros where our hostel is. You might guess by looking at it's name that the town has something to do with iron, and the town's name actually means "blacksmiths." There don't seem to be any forges or blacksmiths in sight any longer, however. The hostel is one of the not-terribly attractive, but functional government-run white and blue buildings that looks like a big FEMA trailer. It holds only 18 pilgrims and I am #14. I hope that Stella is not too far behind. She gets in at #17! The bathroom is not great (Stella is so much more tolerable about these things than I am!) But at least we have a bed for the night. There is a rainstorm after we get settled. Afterwards, we have a beer at the little cafe next door. There isn't much of anywhere to explore, but we head down the road and discover a little restaurant. Apparently, it also has an alburgue - if only we'd known! We have a delightful dinner with a very funny waitress. We'll be back in the morning for coffee and tea before we hit the road. As always, the World Cup is on the TV. We climb back up the hill to our no-frills alburgue - well, they gave us mattress and pillow covers in case of bedbugs, I guess that's a frill!






Ferreiros to Ventas de Noran (Saturday, June 26th)
We're out of our trailer-alburgue early and eager to get down the hill for cups of caffe and tee. Then it's off into the early morning mist again. A few kilometers down the road, we begin to hear music wafting through the air. It's Celtic and lilting. It seems so appropriate coming to us through these ancient trees. We're in an area of a little bit of settlement and the music is getting louder. Fiddles and pipes. It's coming from behind a wooden enclosure - we go in the gate only to find a wonderful little spot for a break. A woman has reclaimed (with pictures to prove it!) a derelict set of buildings and turned them into a fabulous little alburgue and cafe. Too bad we didn't know about this last night! But then we wouldn't have had our fun dinner. It's a lovely spot, especially since we are still in the morning mist of the mountains. Finally, we get up to go on as others arrive.


We begin to descend out of the mountains towards the Rio Mino, where we can once again see vineyards. Especially as we get close to the city of Portomarin. Actually, the new city. The original city dated back, perhaps, to Roman times. It had a bridge at least as early as the 10th century. It was a very strategic location, however, so the bridge was destroyed numerous times in various conquests. Until the 1800's, it was also an important commercial center, but developing roadways took traffic elsewhere, so the city shrank. In the 1950's, work began on a major dam and resevoir in order to provide hydroelectricity for the region. Only the most major monuments - the Romanesque churches of San Pedro and San Nicolas (now San Xoan), and the old manor house - were removed to the higher ground where the new city stands, and everything else was flooded. We get a good view of the new city before we cross over.

When the water is lower, you are supposed to be able to see the ruins, but we were not able to see anything. There is just a narrow walkway along the bridge on one side next to the auto traffic. Fortunately, it wasn't too busy on this Saturday morning as we were crossing, as it didn't feel very wide to me. I was glad to be on the other side! Once again, we had to climb UP to get where we were going. One lady had two little matching dogs that seemed to have free reign of the whole town because we kept seeing them everywhere and they weren't paying a bit of attention to her efforts to recall them. We took our time walking around the new city, getting a few things to eat for lunch at the grocery and sitting in the square, people-watching for awhile. We also went into San Xoan. In leaving Portomarin, we had to go across a rather rickety looking footbridge across a river, but it held.


From Portomarin, our journey this day is mostly through fields and groves and through some tiny gatherings of houses and farms such as Toxibo and Gonzar, until we reach our final destination, the lovely little community of Ventas de Naron. This community has no more than a handful of buildings with a couple of alburgues and cafes, but it seems so idyllic with the sheepfold in the middle of all of it! I get registered in the alburgue and grab a bunk, and put down my backpack, then go downstairs to grab a bite to eat and a glass of wine. Stella shows up just about then and, after she gets settled, comes out to join me. As I glance out our window later, this is the view: If sheep may safely graze, then I think we will sleep well here tonight! We share our room with a woman 'a caballo' pilgrim who has a lame horse, but the rest of the bunks remain empty. There is a bit of a rain shower so we have to relocate our laundry quickly under a porch roof. When laundry isn't dry by morning, we just tie it on to the back of our pack and let it air out until it's ready, then stick it away! We have a nice little dinner at our alburgue - there really isn't much choice here. Then ba-a-a-ck to our room to sleep.


Ventas de Noran to Melide (Sunday, June 27th)

Almost all of the last week we haven´t had internet access, so it is a lot to catch up on. I will start with today and as I can, I will fill back in. Guess what? We are 31 miles from Santiago as of tonight!!! Wee Haw! Stella and I did 18 miles, more than 27 km today, plus a few late this afternoon trying to find a place to stay here in Melide. We had planned to have a shorter day, about 18 km, but we got to where we were going to stay, Vilar Casanova, and found that it was not a great alburgue. It was also in the middle of nowhere with nothing of interest around it, and it was only about 12:30. We would have been bored for the rest of the afternoon, so we decided to do about 10 km more and get a little further down the road. We had thought that Melide was supposed to be a little more medieval and attractive than it is, but apparently it is not. It is, however more of a city, and we did have stuff to do this afternoon (walk, walk, walk, look for a place to stay, walk).

It was a gorgeous day. We have been blessed in our weather. Other than the first mountain crossing and the three days of rain on the meseta, we have had lovely and cool weather. We have had rain twice in the evenings after we have arrived, including last evening. Today started out foggy and cool and stayed nice and cool all day until late this afternoon. Today´s walk was mostly wooded and shady, and a good bit downhill and not so steep. There are few villages along the way, but here and there a farm or two. As we left Ventas de Noran, we passed the Cross of Lameiros, which dates from 1672.

There are lots of interesting characters to meet on the Camino. Today, we met John de Verra, a retiree from London, England, but whose family was originally from Verra, Spain. His ancestor fought on the losing side in the Battle of Trafalgar, but eventually became a chandler in the British Navy (we got the WHOLE story). He was quite a character. Travels Europe in his RV now, no strings attached. Made it quite clear, first to me and then to Stella when she came up, that he was looking for a traveling partner. He really was very lonely and was just looking for someone with whom to converse in English. Stella was brave enough to have a cup of coffee with him. If you´ve ever watched the Britcoms and you know what Onslow and Daisy´s dishware looks like on ¨Keeping Up Appearances,¨you´ve got a good idea about how clean (or not) it all was! John used to be a stage director for a West End Theatre and then he was in TV production for a couple of decades for British TV before he was downsized. Now, he wants to travel Italy from top to bottom and France and a few other places. Mostly, he just wants company.

The rest of the journey today was through quiet shaded paths. One of my pre-arrival questions was, are there squirrels in Spain? Well, the answer is yes. But not many. In all the woods and forests and parks and trees that we have walked through and by, I have seen a grand total of two (yes, two) and Stella has seen one. And they are not grey like the ones we have in the US, but dark brown, like the color of a mink coat. I did see something about the same shade of gray in a farmyard yesterday, only it was much bigger. And it had bigger haunches. I didn´t get to see it very well. I suppose it could have been a bunny. But I really think it was more like a very big rat. It certainly wasn´t a cat.

After the big park in which we meet John, and the other woods, we reach the little city of Palas do Rei. For a change, we find ourselves going DOWNhill through much of it. There are some interesting things to see. We poke our head into a church. It is quiet and cool inside. We make a pitstop for lunch in a nice little bar/cafe. I got tired of the heavy cheese sandwiches (and I REALLY can't stand the fatty meats in other sandwiches) weeks ago, so I often get a 'huevos francese' sandwich, which is somewhere between scrambled and fried eggs in between bread. Most of the heavy, chunky bread gets left behind. I am looking forward to lighter, fresher meals!

As we are headed out of Palas do Rei on the other side of town, we find this lovely two-pilgrim statue in a dance. It's hard to get a good picture of it. In Galicia, the Camino is marked more poorly than anywhere else, and we have a moment when we cannot figure out where we are supposed to go. Again, as if God has provided a guardian angel, a man appears from nowhere and points us where we need to go. I know it is obvious that we are pilgrims and I'm sure it is obvious by our faces that we are confused, but we have just been helped like this more times than we can count!


We continue to walk through shady, mostly wooded lands today. We are in the province of A Coruna. We notice for the first time that they have placed litter barrels along the way - and the pilgrims are using them! It's one of the cleaner segments of the Camino! It is very pretty countryside. We stop at a really nice little cafe for a break and they have some interesting clay Celtic jewelry for sale. I find a necklace for Stella as both a birthday present and a memento of our journey together, and a similar one for Mom. Both of them remind me of the pilgrim statue we just saw in Palas do Rei - it is two people dancing, dressed in traditional Galician attire. For Stella, it is a reminder of the wonderful marriage she has with Dave, with whom she has been through so much and who at this very moment is at home redoing her entire kitchen for her! And for Mom, it reminds me of the dance she had with my dad for 53 years.

We meet some more animal friends along the way. Momma is very proud of her baby and is happy to let us scratch her and her baby's ears and muzzles. We are in and out of woodlands, and it is such a peaceful walk. Where there are homes, people invariably have at least one corn crib of a very distinct style. The Spanish (or Galician) name for them is "horreo." I don't really understand the attachment to these corncribs. Even when the homes are in a more suburban area, people will have small, concrete horreos in their yards, like we might have a birdbath. There are small decorative ones made in any material you can imagine to put on your coffeetable or bookshelf, should you so desire!



It would seem that everyone in Spain has a green thumb. The blooms along this part of the Camino, despite the woods and shade in many parts, are vivid colors. People grow flowers everywhere they can and the climate certainly favors it.

Along the way, there is a monument with this Cross of St. James on it.



I'm a little ahead of Stella as I finally reach Melide and cross over this beautiful, stone arch bridge. It is a hot climb up a hill after this. Once again, I'm not sure where to find an alburgue (what was once an alburgue is no longer), and I wait for a while at an intersection where I think Stella can't miss me, but it gets hot, so I wander closer in to the older part of the city. I find a place to sit, at least, and take off the pack. At last, Stella arrives. We decide to have some alemandrado blanco (of course!) before going one more step. We notice a sign on the door for rooms at this little cafe. We go into the city a few blocks further and find that the one main alburgue has been closed and so the other is full. We do not feel like going any further for the night and so we quickly go back to the place where we had the ice cream to see if those rooms are still available. They are and so we splurge monetarily and get one. It is not wonderful except that it is private and, once again, we have real beds instead of bunk beds.

After getting settled in, we go downstairs where we know they have some computers available and try to catch up with some emails home. Then we head out to explore the city some more. It is an interesting little place, though not as attractive as we had expected from the guidebook description. The city is considered the "geographical heart of Galicia." The core of the city is medieval with several old churches and some other buildings. There's a museum here, too.

It is interesting being a pilgrim versus a tourist. There is part of the history and story that we are taking in, and we did the tour of the monastery in Samos, but it is different. The focus is more on the journey and the bigger picture perhaps, not the details? I'm not sure that's really right. Here's another stab at the difference. Tourism is about learning all there is to know about some place - the history and the people and the culture. Pilgrimage is about getting quiet and walking into the depths of the experience of it in time and space. Allowing what is important to saturate you and what is not to slip off. That's closer. It may still be not quite right. Allowing space for what God wants to show you in a particular place and time. Getting closer to what the difference is. There are times when I wish we had more time or energy or money to stop and look at interesting things, although then I wonder why - would I really remember it in the blur of all we have experienced? Now, I remember things about how the layers of leaves felt on the mountain, and how the rain felt like a water pic on the meseta and how sometimes it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other as prayer to say yes to God, and somehow this is more important to me as pilgrimage. Or the conversations I have had and the faces of people I've met, and I think that is the take home, not some display some place in a building.


We have dinner at a little restaurant on the corner of the main streets in downtown. It is wonderful watching everyone go by on this sunny Sunday evening. I'm getting sadder that our great adventure is getting closer to its end, but excited to be reaching our goal. It's such an odd mix of feelings. I can't wait to get to better, healthier food, but I love being outdoors, seeing new places, meeting wonderful people. We walk slowly back to our home for the night.

Tired

Fonfria to Samos (Thursday, June 24th)
Grrrr. The cyclists are up early, making lots of noise, and then, surprise, they're still out in the cafe sipping their coffee awhile later when we get out there. It isn't like they really get an early start or anything... okay soapbox over.

Anyway, since we are awakened early, we get ready and are on the road before the sun is up



We continue to walk through the Galician countryside, and I add to my collection of pictures of interesting doorways. Green is still the most popular color, though it doesn't look as though anyone has painted anything in recent years. As I have already mentioned, Galicia is the poorest region in Spain and we pass many households and farms in which it is difficult to imagine anyone living because the conditions seem so bad. The dampness and the cold weather must be nearly unbearable in some of these places, except that the farmers keep their livestock in the same buildings in which they live (which means the smells must get unbearable!), so their body heat perhaps also helps keep the humans warm in the colder weather. In summer, the animals are left to graze outdoors. One farmhouse has an outbuilding with unique siding. We pass through another farm that actually has a separate barn, and this horse pops his (or her) head out a window to greet us!



As we continue our gentle descent down the mountainside, we are blessed with beautiful early morning views. One of the views includes the quarry from which the stone and lime for the cathedral in Santiago was constructed. At the time it was being built, pilgrims were expected to take at least one stone with them as they passed by and carry them to the kilns in Castaneda, and that is how the basilica in Santiago got built!

We have seen some very old trees already, but in Galicia, especially, we will see some amazing ones, including this gnarly specimen. Notice how big it is compared to Stella! I don't have any idea what kind of tree it is, but apparently, you have to have pretty long arms to be a 'tree hugger' in these here parts!

We arrive in the very old city of Triacastella, which seems to be a very much alive little city and very pleasant. We come to the church and, as we do in lots of places, decide to poke our head in, if for no other reasons than just to admire the art and to get a stamp on our credentials. It is a lovely little church. While part of it dates from the 12th century, most of it, including the bell tower above, only date to the 18th. But it has an active congregation as opposed to many of the others we've seen. On the wall is some work of a Sunday school class that is rather interesting. In many different languages, it says, "To be a Christian is to imitate Christ within your own limitations." Some bread for the journey. We come back outside and notice how full and closely packed the graveyard is - apparently space is at a premium as they have some of them stacked 5 and 6 high behind where I'm standing. Perhaps the ground is that rocky and they just can't go down; they have to go up. Nothing like a highrise cemetery! Outside the church is the city's coat-of-arms which clearly indicates three castles, like the name implies. We have not seen hide-nor-hair of anything that looks like a castle or a 'hillfort' within or overlooking this little city nestled in the hills. We stop in a bank to get some more euros and ask about the castles and the name of the city. The man just laughs it off - oh, they've been gone for centuries, apparently. Guess we should have read the guide book more closely, apparently! We're a little disappointed.

Coming out of Triacastela, there's a choice. We could go more directly to Sarria (we'll end up going through there anyway), or we could take the southerly route that goes through Samos. We opt for Samos because it has the wonderful Benedictine monastery there. It is one of the oldest monasteries in the Western world, with origins back to the 6th century! It is also supposed to be a very scenic route. It ends up being sort of another Mystic Seaport route, but we do eventually get there. Stella and I finally reach one village that we think just has to be Samos only to find that it is not, but we take a break at a little cafe there so we can make it the last few kilometers.

In going the last few kilometers, I get a little ahead of Stella again, but I am near several other pilgrims. We are all pretty much ready to get to Samos. At last, we arrive at a break in the trees and we are looking down into the city. It is fascinating to have this perspective on the monastery building. It still takes a little while to get into the city - it feels like we are walking around our elbow to get to our thumb as we are apparently walking around an old city wall or something, but at least it is downhill all the way. Finally, I enter the city proper. The monastery sits like a doting grandmother with skirts all laid out, the village gathered around her like so many eager grandchildren. There is a small river and almost a park-like setting surrounding the monastery.

I'm really tempted to get an ice cream as I sit down on the stone wall to wait for Stella to arrive since we are not sure where we are going to stay here. It feels good to let go of my pack and just lay down on the top of the wall and feel the breeze... ahhhhh... Did I mention that Stella and I have been developing an ice cream habit lately? With a preference for alemandrado blanco? It's vanilla ice cream on a stick covered in white chocolate with chopped up almonds. YUMMM. And we have a preference for which brand of ice cream, too, but in a pinch, we'll take what's available. Especially after a long hot walk. I guess I'll wait for her to do the ice cream. We probably need lunch first. Maybe.

Okay, so back to the monastery and Samos. The monatery was at first Coptic, like the monks in the Desert. By the 8th century, these monks would help educate King Alfonso II, the king who would later help promote the discovery of St. James' tomb which happened during his reign (the plot thickens!). During the 10th c., the monastery became Benedictine. About the year 1000, the monks built the unusual Chapel of El Salvador, also known as the Cypress Chapel, after the enormous cypress tree that stands next to the chapel and that is over 1000 years old. They have been taking in pilgrims ever since they became Benedictine. But this is not where we decided to stay!

After Stella arrived, we found an almost new alburgue just down the street, overlooking the monastery. We thought it was expensive, but we are realizing the closer we get to Santiago, the more expensive everything is! Anyway, the Val de Samos Alburgue, too new to even be in our updated guidebooks, was lovely. And there were not that many of us staying there. One woman staying in our bunk room seemed to be especially anti-social or else she just wasn't feeling well. She covered her head as she laid on her bunk the entire time. Once again, the building was practically built into the rock wall behind the building.

After we did our laundry, got cleaned up and settled, we went out and toured Samos. We found some lunch and then we decided to do the late afternoon tour of the monastery. It was really interesting. Only about 20 monks still live in the huge building. Part serves as a hostel; part is rented out as apartments it looks like. We get to see some of the more public areas on the first and second floors and the cloister and courtyard. Parts of the monastery have been rebuilt or added onto many times, so there are many styles represented.
Most of the tour was in Spanish, so, even though Stella was with me, we didn't understand a lot of the details of what was being said, but we got the gist of it. There was a big fire in the 1950's, so many of the murals in the upstairs hallways are suprisingly modern.

After the tour, we finally got our ice cream! We found that the local library was open and had computers we could use for a little while. Dinner was at a little 'mom & pop' restaurant down the street. Salut!

Triumphant

Herrerias to Fonfria (Wednesday, June 23rd) Today, we conquered the second mountain, O´Cebreiro! As Stella came up over the crest, she held up her arms ala Rocky, tada! O´Cebreiro (pronounced Oh-thay-bray-ERE-a, according to our guidebook), is 1300 meters, and actually, we also crossed Alto de Poio (or O Poio), at 1337 meters, the highest point in Galicia and on our trip, a short time later. Even though we had dreaded this mountain a little, it wasn´t so bad. The first third, from Herrerias up to La Faba was a little difficult. At first we shared asphalt with the cyclists, but quickly branched off onto wooded, steep and rocky paths. There was actually a section, though, that seemed rather like a little hidden paradise, a bit primordial, and, as no other pilgrim was immediately in sight before or behind me, I felt as if it was just for me to savor. As if I were an Eve in my very own Garden of Eden. I stayed there a few extra moments, a welcome break during the most arduous part of the morning. Then, I finished the steep climb up to La Faba and I was quite ready to get there. On leaving the little village, I was slightly confused by the yellow arrow and couldn´t tell which of the paths to take, left towards the fountain, or straight ahead. As has happened so many times, a person, or perhaps a guardian angel, just appears out of nowhere and points the way. Stella says we have big 'L´s' on our foreheads for ¨lost¨ and everyone in any town just seems to know what we need and where to take us. It has happened so many times it´s amazing. So this guy just appears out of nowhere and indicates that I´m to take the straight ahead path. Only then do I see the other yellow arrow which says that, too. Meanwhile, he´s asking me where I´m from and I tell him Ëstasdos Unidos. He tells me (he has to tell me twice before I understand him) that the people who live in the very house we are standing in front of are from the US, specifically Connecticut. Who would choose to live in this out-of-the-way village? Nice house. Definitely someone who wants to REALLY get away! Thanks to this man´s assistance, I am on my way again. The second third, to La Laguna de Castilla, is much less steep and more open, less rocky. I take a break at a little bar-cafe in Laguna. Two little minivans let out a group of older touristy Camino travelers who don't really look like they are dressed for hiking. I assume they are just going to do this one segment up to the top of the mountain, but I will end up seeing them a couple of days later. It seems they travel by van from place to place with a guide and walk selected short sections with little day packs. Everyone does the camino their own way, rather like life. The last part of the mountain is not so demanding either. And the whole way up is just one breathtaking view after another. I periodically pause just to take it all in - not like on the way to Hunnto because I have to, but because I want to; it is just so beautiful and my pictures don't begin to do it justice. I have no idea how many miles we can see for across the valleys to other peaks. It´s a long ways. We have entered the province of Galicia a short while before reaching the top of the mountain. At this point, there are only 152 km to Santiago! At the top of the mountain is a reconstructed little Galician Village. Galicia is one of the poorest regions of Spain. The buildings are stone. Corners are often rounded, I think so that spirits cannot hide in them, but I might be confusing cultures. The design is pre-Roman in origin and they are called pallozas. Roofs here are slate shingles or perhaps thickly thatched. The only original buildings at the top are the church, Santa Maria a Real do Cebreiro, which is one of the oldest (pre-Romanesque) churches along the entire pilgrimage route, and the hospital (in the care of pilgrims, not like we think of it) connected to it, which dates to the 9th century. There is also a memorial dedicated to the man responsible for the Camino the way it is today and developing the way of marking it with the yellow arrows. I step into the church and there is a mass being said in German. I listen for awhile and am able to follow along with a lot of it. I go back out to the topmost point of the mountain and take a 360 degree look around the surrounding countryside. There is also a monument at the top marking the spot where a pilgrim, lost below in the fog, heard the sound of bagpipes being played and was led to the top of the mountain where he found safety and shelter. There is another marker commemorating a 14th c. miracle, when a less-believing parishioner actually saw the bread and wine turn to the body and blood of Christ, the Holy Grail, here. That miracle was later incorporated into the coat of arms of Galicia. Galicia has been Celtic for centuries, so there is a strong influence in the language and customs. I wait for Stella to catch up (tada!) and then we check out the little touristy shops. They have some nice things as well as schmaltzy. I find a pretty pair of Celtic design earrings for Laura who is looking after my mungos (Gaelic for beloveds) back home - Nicholas and Oliver. Stella picks up a few things for her granddaughters. Then we begin the trek down hill, well not quite downhill as there is a little bit taller mountain nearby (O Poio), but then we begin to descend. It's another gloriously sunny day. We walk mostly through woods, especially pines. We walk down and down and down. We pass through some small villages and by some farms. The poverty of Galicia makes it a 'no frills' kind of place. The people are practical to the bone. We end up for the day in the town of Fonfria, a very small town, the name of which derives from 'a cold fountain' that I never managed to find as I walked around later. The hostel is a bright spot in an otherwise incredibly bleak little town. All of the other buildings, at most 20, are concrete block, mostly two story, with cattle and farm equipment on the bottom floor and the human inhabitants on top. There is no ornamentation of any kind on any building except for the hostel and a small bar/cafe on the far end of the village - a whole 3-minute walk away, if you take your time. To get to the other end of the village, one has only to walk through the cow-manure, cow-pee, straw and farm equipment laden streets. There is nothing that is not of purpose here - absolutely everything has to do with the livelihood of these people. It's purposeful, but not exciting. I make several loops through the village because, after doing my laundry and not being able to take a nap due to the horrible choice of music playing in the bunkroom of the hostel and not being able to use the internet since the computer is broken, there is not much else to do. I did get a picture of a hound dog on a roof (haven't ever seen that before!), and I wondered how a dog gets on a roof - especially a dog that moves at about 1 mph - until I realize the back side of the house is built into the side of a hill! Stella comes out to walk as well and we explore around the small chapel and surrounding cemetery that don't look like they are ever used except for weddings and funerals and certainly not recently. The hostel itself is great, with a little cafe/bar in front, with a courtyard garden, a common room, a large bunk room and a big dining room and kitchen. We sit out in the courtyard with a couple of beers until dinner's ready. There isn't any other option for dinner besides the hostel, because the cafe really doesn't have much in the way of real food, but that's fine, even though dinner is late in coming. The dinner table is long and probably seats at least 25 or 30 folks. The multi-course dinner is wonderful, with soup and pasta and great bread and more. And the man and woman who serve it all up are fabulous. Stella and I are seated near several Germans who are anxious to get done and watch the World Cup match with the German team playing that night. (Unfortunately, they lose.) The young lady who sits next to me is a very extroverted, very engaging nurse who wants to become a midwife. She and the attractive, dark, curly-haired guy across from her have quite a verbal sparring match of wits during dinner. The young man to my left, at the end of the table, is from Venezuela. He and his wife are in Madrid where she has the power job and he is the stay-at-home dad to their small child. They both can't wait to get back to their home country, though. It is a very fun evening. Two mountains down; one to go.

Quiet

Villafranca to Herrerias (Tuesday, June 22nd)
We left Villafranca early and ended up taking the optional path, along the road, without even realizing it. We simply missed the preferred path because you really had to look for the trail where it branched off. However, because of that, we had a really lovely view back over Villafranca shortly after leaving. It almost looked like a fairy tale village caught in the mists of time, between the mountains.

This was actually the one segment of the journey that I was very apprehensive about because of one of the books that I had read before leaving for this trip. One of the authors had talked about this segment as having two options - either a very steep and difficult climb through the hills or else along the highway, pinned quite narrowly between speeding vehicles and a guardrail with a 50´dropoff. Fortunately, much has changed since that book was written - perhaps because of it! The steep climb was the route we inadvertantly missed. And in the last two years, the government has built this engineering marvel called the autopista, the Spanish version of the autobahn, that has taken almost all of the traffic away from the highway which we are traveling. Perched on concrete props way high in the air, with just little, itsy bitsy guard rails for safety, it's a road that would terrify me to drive on. I am, however, delighted that it draws so much traffic away from us hikers! In addition, they have erected concrete barriers to separate pilgrims from cars, which are not traveling all that fast now - it's the "Sunday" drivers who don't mind taking the slower route who are on this road. Often, the river is running over the rocks down below us in a nice bubbly way. And there is a guard rail on that side as well. It's a delightfully sunny day as we wind our way through the hills on either side of us.

There are some neat little villages and stops along the way - we stop for one break in the little village of Trabadelo, where the only business seems to be the bar. For such an out-of-the-way place, it has a pretty nice bathroom! In another village, we stop to watch a sawmill in operation. Stella takes pictures for her husband, David, who works with a lumber yard.

Another rest break is at a real truck stop where a school group is also breaking, so there are lots of kids. One thing that is hard to get over as we walk through the cafe/bar to use the facilities is the amount of trash and litter that just gets thrown on the floor. You cannot possibly walk across the floor without walking on the napkins, cigarette butts, straw wrappers and other miscellaneous items. It almost covers the floor, especially around the stools. No one uses the trash can, and no one leaves it on the counter! It's just amazing to American eyes. We look around a gift shop that has lots of interesting products, food and otherwise, from all over Spain. They're fascinating, and some are even enticing (like the cheeses, the chocolates, the nuts, the wine...), but way too heavy to carry, so we leave with nothing. Except on the edge of the parking area is another vendor of fresh cherries. This is the best buy yet, a humongous bag of cherries for just one euro! We indulge yet again. Instead of being a threatening day, it is a quite enjoyable day!

We share a number of kilometers on our journey with Ian, a 62 year old Danish accountant, who has decided to get away for awhile. (That's him up ahead in this picture before we catch up to him at a break.) He is fun to talk to. Like a number of our foreign encounters, he asks what we think of our president. He also talks about how the Danish provide for their people in many ways. It´s a whole different way of looking at life - and what it means to be in community as a nation and a people.

We reach Herrerias by early afternoon. The alburgue isn´t open yet, but it looks cute with its hand-decorated "shutters" - actually just the rocks painted to look like shutters, so we go put our feet in a mountain creek - it is SO COLD! My feet can take about 2 seconds, but Stella´s are made of tougher stuff apparently. I work on labeling some of my pictures on my computer instead, just in case I ever get to load them on this blog or for viewing later. Eventually, we get into the alburgue. A young, lithesome Spanish woman named Miriam runs the place. She nonchalantly says we can check in later and mentions that she does a vegetarian dinner from her own garden if we´re interested and we indicate that we are. She shows us to our bunks. Then she disappears for a long while. So we get cleaned up, take a nap, go wander. Eventually others come. We meet Richard, Miriam´s American significant other. Richard is from Chicago. He was running a nightclub when someone pulled a gun on him one night. He decided that he no longer wanted that life. He bought a one-way ticket for Madrid. While he was there, he heard about the Camino and decided he needed to do it. Seems while he was walking the Camino last year, he was walking through Herrerias and Miriam caught his eye - ooh lah lah! He stayed four months. Then he decided he needed to finish the Camino. But he came back and they realized they had missed each other so much that he´s been there ever since. If you could see this little village that has no stores, just two little bar-cafes and this alburge, a handful of houses, some barns and a church, cows bawling and roosters crowing at all times of day and night, you would have just a small taste of how much Richard´s life has changed. Now he wants to try and help change his brother's life the same way.

Around 5 p.m. I ask Miriam what time dinner will be and she just looks at me funny and says, "Oh, you should have told me!" We thought we had. Oddly enough, some Spanish guys who came in just before I asked her did end up getting dinner, but it probably worked out as it needed to. So we wander a half mile down the road to the only other place to eat, the place where we had lunch. The walls are pretty much the exact shade of periwinkle that I am thinking of painting my kitchen. (While we are gone, Stella's sweetheart of a husband is completely redoing her kitchen!) We are early for dinner, so we have a glass of the local white wine at a cafe table outside. The fat, lazy cat lounges near us.

Martene, a French woman we have walked with and been keeping pace with on and off joins us for dinner. It is a deep and touching conversation, a sense of communion, of truly breaking bread together. As we have with so many other pilgrims, we talk about what has drawn us to the Camino and what it has been like for us. This is Martene's second time to walk it. There is a sense of mystery and darkness or sadness about her, though she is happy tonight. We talk about redemption and forgiveness and second chances and we toast to them. There are tears and smiles. We have an absolutely wonderful dinner with the best paella yet. It has a little zing to it, which the others have not had, and clear, distinct flavors. Then, I ordered fish, and actually eat the little fishies that came out of the stream that cows drink out of (and you know what in) and certain people have soaked their feet in. Didn´t really think I´d eat fish that came with their heads on, but - thanks to Stella's coaching - once I get past just cutting the heads off and pushing them aside and pretending they aren´t there, it is fine. I probably have all kinds of chemicals in me from the fish I´ve eaten out of local streams over here, and from the roadside cherries we´ve bought, but you know, it has all tasted very good. And you only go around once. Maybe the local beer and wine have killed those local germs.

After dinner, we walk through town, which is to say, we walk back and forth down the one real street. Martene has talked about a house that she is interested in buying. Apparently, when a house is listed privately, the Spanish would rather see the property crumble to dust, or eventually be turned over to a relative rather than sell to a foreigner - or at least some foreigners (like Americans). They do not like intruders in their little villages. Martene is a dreamer, and it's doubtful that she will ever really buy a house in Herrerias. She stops to peer in the darkened doorway of a dilapidated house, and both a man's voice and chickens cackling shoo her away! At some point, Martene drifts off into a conversation with a local. We pass this artful composition, and I can't help but smile and take a picture. There are cows down in the pasture, perhaps 75 yards away from the alburgue. For once, we have a window open all night for fresh air. Who knew that cows can bawl so loud? The next time you hear "Äway in a Manger", when they get to the part about the 'cattle are lowing,' just know that they can make one heck of a noise, and it isn´t always some gentle lullaby for the Christ Child! But it´s kind of nice. In a very earthy, down-home kinda way. Mooooo-ooo-ooo.