The Occasionally-Examined Life

12 Oct 2019

It was a clear 54F when I left Portomarin. Albergue/hostel owners save money, I guess, as their season starts to wind down by not firing up the furnace. The radiator in my pension room was cold as stone all night long, so there was no heat when it was needed. I see more and more pilgrims in the morning now, a long snaking line of day-glow colors. Judging from overheard conversations on the trail, since Sarria, there have been many more Germans, Frenchmen, Italians, and Spaniards added to the mix.

After the climb out of town this morning, it was easy walking through small villages all day. And it ended 18 Kms later, around 1:30 in Eirexe, a small bend in the road that features a pension, an albergue, and a cafe. While having a cocktail at the cafe, the owner of this interesting vehicle stopped in:

He said it was entirely human-powered and a real workout on some of the hills. I guess I’ve now seen it all on the Camino now: this, tandem mountain bikes, jogging strollers, rickshaw-style cargo trailers, horses, and of course the regular pilgrim.

I walked today with Susan from Seattle, a tennis enthusiast, whom I met a few days earlier sharing cocktails with Ken, Kerry, and Christie. She was staying where I was in Eirexe, so we had cocktails there too, and she asked if I’d had any epiphanies so far and we discussed the effects of Camino, and how people appear during your walk. Neither of us reported any great insights but we agreed that who you meet along the way means something.

Tomorrow’s weather is rumored to be wet, so it was frustrating to discover that the WiFi signal didn’t extend to my pension room (and barely existed six feet from the router in the common room) and that I had no cell data signal at all. Wow! Modern existential crisis: unable to determine weather on Camino using mobile phone!

I decided to see what tomorrow delivered…

11 Oct 2019

I had a good night’s sleep (perhaps the cocktails helped) and left Sarria at my usual 8:30, in clear, 46F weather. Today was going to be a long one, 22 Kms, to Portomarin. It became a gorgeous, clear Fall day, into the mid-70s, with no humidity.

I passed a lot of this stuff growing by the path: yes, that’s cabbage but the tall stalks seem very unusual. It’s used in the this province, Galicia, for their signature “Caldo Gallego” or potato-cabbage soup.

They also grow a lot of these, but I think this is the first photo of Elsie I’ve taken:

With this kind of weather and path surface, I could walk all day:

And, our helpful Camino marker/milepost says, I have less than 100 Kms to Santiago!

Just outside Portomarin, I encountered Kerri and Christie in a roadside cafe but I said just hello and kept on going. We never did run across each other that night in Portomarin.

Shortly after that, I came to a place where the trail split. Which way to go? There was a helpful sign, saying the new slightly longer path was much easier, while the old, original shorter path involved some nasty clambering down rocks. Definitely the new path for me! But guess who misread the sign and went the old way? I did, of course, and found myself on the Portomarin “Billy Goat Trail”, literally on all fours going down very narrow rock chutes. Luckily, I made it safely through, though my legs were incredibly tired. And, I arrived at the foot of the bridge into town in double-quick time:

My hostel was quite near the main plaza and the fortress-like church. According to my cafe/bar place mat, in 1956 the entire church was relocated from a zone being flooded by a new dam, stone-by-stone, and rebuilt here.

I mentioned Caldo Gallego earlier, the regional soup, and here it is, along with my main course:

Now that we’ve passed Sarria, we’ve also been advised that we need to get two stamps per day in our pilgrim passports. So I have to remember to do that. We’re urged onward by the local statuary:

10 Oct 2019

I’m up and out of Triacastela at 8:40, with clear skies and a bit chilly at 44F. I feel exhausted and my back is sore. I also have a new blister on my right big toe, probably due to all the descents, but I put a Compeed plaster on it and it feels OK.

All my clothes and boots dried real well overnight and I had a good breakfast that included bacon, eggs, and a banana. There will be no services available for the first 10 Kms of my 17 Km walk to Sarria.

As the day progressed, it became sunny and then went back to foggy and cold, prompting constant clothing changes. I finally arrived in Sarria at 1:30 with a nice sunny 65F, and encountered a super-steep stairway of about 60 steps to get up into town. Do you think that’s a medieval defense system? No one in armor (or even just a backpack) could dash up those steps and then fight. It’s what I’ve come to call the “last slap in the face” that ends so many of these stages.

I stayed at the lovely Aqua Rooms and, of course, found you-know-who at the nearest bar:

Sarria is 110 Kms from Santiago, the minimum distance the church has decreed that a pilgrim must travel in order to receive a Camino completion certificate. So this is where a lot of pilgrims start. It’s also where tour companies begin dropping off clients for the daily walking part of their “Glamino” package. Net effect for me: more pilgrims on the trail and in the bars and cafes.

The guidebooks warn that the number of Camino scammers (had to be some) will increase from here, too: people accosting you on the trail for “donations”, for your signature on petitions, and so forth. We’re advised to “just keep walking”.

Personally, Sarria means there’s just one week left before I arrive in Santiago. Holy cow – I can hardly believe it! I’m not sure what to feel: elation, pride, sadness. What will Life After the Camino be like? I’m not sure I can handle having eight pairs of underwear to choose from again.

9 Oct 2019

I awoke in my warm attic room to wet and chilly conditions: 43F with fog (but not raining). After packing up, I met Jackie for breakfast downstairs before we set off.

Sorry, I didn’t take a single photo today!

My wet foggy start turned into a nice cool and sunny Fall day, with the trail moseying through little farm towns, often on cow poop-covered farm paths. Jackie is a faster walker and soon left me behind, a future reunion left to the whim of the Camino.

I ran into the Aussie couple with the nanny and 5 yr-old in a jogging stroller again – awesome people. Mrs. said she worries her daughter won’t remember the trip. I assured her she would.

The descent into Triacastela was long and steep but mostly on paved roads, so nothing like horror of descending into Zubiri in my first week. I arrived at 1:40 after a 20 Km walk. My room at Hotel Duerming Casa was new and nice, naturally I ran into Kerry and Christie for cocktails, and I finally found the razor blades I’d been looking for.

Tomorrow is significant: I arrive in Sarria, gateway to Santiago.

8 Oct 2019

I had high hopes when leaving Trabadelo, despite a forecast of rain, because there was no rain to be seen. The planned walk was 17 Kms and it was 50F at the start. In fact, I was with a small group of pilgrims and everyone was in a great mood. After all, Santiago was less than 180 Kms away now.

Sadly, as the morning progressed and we climbed into the mountains, clouds and other hints of what was coming appeared.

Still, the ascent and weather were tolerable, until the town of Vega de Valcarce. That’s were the on-and-off rain, fog, and poor path quality started. Let’s go to the graphic of the elevation changes:

As you know by now, suffocating rain gear + hard ascent = steam bath. My least-favorite state of affairs. Then the weather degraded in a hurry, even when the path surface improved temporarily.

The steam bath, weather, and sheer exercise of climbing for hours was really fatiguing. I was running on empty when the rain paused and I entered the little town of O Cebriero. The Wise Camino app describes it as having “grown from a small and ancient village of dairy farmers into a small and ancient village of large-scale tourism”. There’s nothing quite like a few tour buses disgorging folks at the top of the hill to make the agony of my last few hours seem pointless.

I stumbled onward, looking like I’d just emerged after having been thrown into a swimming pool, in search of my hostel. Who should I find at the nearby bar, looking calm and collected while enjoying a fresh beverage? Yes, folks, Kerry and Christie. Too tired to stop and chat, I stumbled on.

I finally found my accommodations at last and my hosts were very kind about my drowned-rat appearance. However, when they showed me the “stairs” to my attic room, I thought at first they were joking:

I really had to summon up some reserves to get my legs to take me up there.

After my rejuvenating pilgrim routine, including rigging a clothesline to dry everything, I went down to the bar part of the establishment. Jackie, an artist from Bristol, U.K., whom I’d met a few days earlier, walked in and we had dinner together. She’s a fascinating woman who, among other things, is a free-lance illustrator of children’s books. The good company and warm food did wonders for me.

Tucked away in my attic room, I was plenty warm that night and absolutely everything dried out. The forecast for my start the next day was for more of the same weather and a famously steep descent into Triacastela, so not that encouraging. Feet and legs were exhausted but not damaged. I was sooo tired I slept like a rock.

7 Oct 2019

Trabadelo is literally a one-street village backing a truck stop at a bend in the road. I set out from Cacabelos at 8:30 in 52F for my 18 Km walk to Trabadelo and arrived at 1:15.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Camino authorities occasionally toss in a new “alternate” route and that was the case today. I, however, took the traditional route which ran mostly along the highway and I was not alone. The day was absolutely gorgeous.

My walk took me along highways and underneath some amazing elevated super-highways. The Spanish are really good at building these overhead roadways through the mountains.

When I arrived in Trabadelo, after I checked into the Nova Ruta hostel and did the usual pilgrim routine, I popped over to the only bar in town:

Where I was greeted warmly by the bouncer:

And then Kerry and Christie showed up and Cocktail Hour commenced.

My walk tomorrow may be very hard – the ladies reported that there are supposedly some killer ascents and that rain in is the forecast. “Waiter! Another round!”

6 Oct 2019

I set out from Ponferrado at my now-usual 8:30 in 52F for my 16 Km walk to Cacabelos. My route would be flat, with a forecast of sun and high clouds, which is what we got:

As we’ve seen before, some jurisdictions use their own Camino way markers along the path, and this one was pretty interesting:

As were the Fall flowers and Roman-era embankment walls I passed along the way:

My walk was mercifully flat, letting my knees rest after yesterday’s hard descents. Cacabelos is an old town and a bit larger than I anticipated. They had a Sunday market going and a lot of townspeople strolling about, arm-in-arm, during the day.

My hostel, La Gallega, was really basic and not much in comparison to the luxury of Albergue Guiana last night, but it was OK and half the price. I ran into two Australian ladies, Kerry and Christie, whom I’d met weeks ago and we had cocktails. That’s how it goes on the Camino: you meet people, don’t see them for a while, and then they reappear.

I couldn’t resist trying a Spanish-style Donner Kebab for dinner and, as it so often turns out, it was not what I expected, but it was good. It has a salad side, with some kind of Ranch dressing, and a meat side, with some kind of barbecue sauce. I was going to take a photo of this interesting culinary specimen, but suddenly it was all gone, and… I couldn’t.

5 Oct 2019

The delightful morning the next day, which had me leaving El Acebo at 8:30 and 51F for a 17 Km walk to Ponferrado, was soon marred by the hellish descent into Molinaseca, a continuation of yesterday’s awful, steep, rock-strewn paths – my knees were feeling it, despite using my trekking poles assiduously.

I saved a few Kms early on by taking the older Camino route, and was glad to have the Wise Camino app to help me find the way. In Molinesca, I found this Camino-related statue:

At 1:15, I made it to the Albergue Guiana in Ponferrado, where I had booked a private room, and found it to be a gem. It’s modern, spacious, and very well thought-out.

The place had all sorts of special facilities for bicycles, too. Including a dedicated back door and freight elevator to take bikes down to the basement, which featured:

The laundry facilities were similarly complete. What a great place! I slept like a baby,

4 Oct 2019

Today’s 17 Km route promises to be mostly uphill and to visit two key features: Cruz Ferro (“the Iron Cross”) and the highest point in the Camino Frances, at 1,532 meters (5,026 feet).

I left Rabanal del Camino at 8:30 in dry, partly cloudy conditions and 50F. Climbing out of town, I was treated to views of fog in lower valleys, and even a fog rainbow:

The weather then went steadily downhill as I went uphill. This is the kind of situation I dislike the most, wet weather and me climbing hard uphill. If I put on rain gear, I’ll most likely sweat enough to be just as wet as if I didn’t.

I soon reached Cruz Ferro, where tradition has it that pilgrims leave a stone, or similar object, perhaps with something written on it, to symbolize the casting-off of some personal burden. After decades of this practice, the hill that the pole and cross stick out of has become fairly high. I was sorry to be visiting it on such a dreary day:

Then I walked on, and the rain held off. The path wandered through fern forests, wild grasses, and low evergreens, a rocky, slate surface.

Then the fun began: long, long stretches of steep descents. Not only are descents especially hard the knees, but on rocky paths you have to concentrate on placing each foot safely, for every step – it’s grueling.

Finally, the clouds cleared and the Camino emerged into El Acebo, and my hostel was right there.

El Rosa del Aqua hostel is a small, 200 yr-old building, with nicely updated rooms and facilities, run by Mike, a transplanted Texan who fled a career as Fortune 100 accountant, and began running the inn this year. What a great guy! He’s a top-notch host, loads of fun to talk to, and will be very successful in his new endeavor. And, there was Cherri, booked into the room next to mine and already sipping a refreshing beverage when I arrived.

3 Oct 2019

Today I started a slow, steady climb to the high point of the Camino Frances, which I’ll reach tomorrow.

It was 8:30am when I left Astorga and 44F, the start of a dry, beautiful day, with temps rising to 72 and no humidity. My 20 Km walk would put me in Rabanal de Camino by 2:30. The route provided a perfect arrangement of a town every 5 Kms, ideal for resting the feet and meal breaks.

In El Gonso (not kidding), I came upon the famous Cowboy Meson (Bar). There wasn’t much else to the town, nor the bar. It was just a bar with outdoor seating. Even the decor inside was not the inspired Texas homage I hoped for, no steer horns on the wall, no Longhorn beer on tap. They did have Willie on the sound system.

I did meet the lovely Cherri there, a pilgrim from Portland and a retired RN, born and raised in Salem, OR (take note, Lindsay Ingram). She was using no digital assistance (no apps, no maps) during her Camino, highly unusual.

In one of those weird Camino coincidences, for the next few days Cherri and I kept running into each other, even staying at the same albergues. She was a fast walker and always left me in the dust, but it was fun to have spent a few days with her.

One place we stayed, El Refugio Hosteria in Rabanal, served up THE best Pilgrim Menu 3-course dinner, and all for 10eu:

Bread, wine, and water included. This one meal made up for many other crappy ones I’d had, and set a standard I didn’t expect to be reached again.