I Should Have Gone to Ibiza

Have I mentioned that I love Paradors?  They're generally awesome: often historic in location and style, but refurbished and modern, with fantastic food at less than the price of a Hampton Inn in the States.  I highly recommend them if you are in Spain.  Thus, I was very sad to leave our Parador in Villafranca.  But we had 18 miles to walk and 3,000 feet of mountain to climb into Galicia.

All in all, it went about as well as could be expected.  The first 6 miles went fairly quickly, with it starting to rain just as we stepped in to the local bar to warm up and have a bite to eat.  The temperature was hovering in the upper 30s, and I convinced Paul that maybe a shot of aguardiente was in order to warm us up.  He concurred, and the bartender poured us two shots of the most wonderful tasting elixir I've had in a long time.  Very peppery, with lots of flavor, as opposed to just the taste of rubbing alcohol, which is often what aguardiente tastes like.  Warm is up it did, though Paul's moonshine palate may not be as well developed as mine...his eyes immediately turned red and he started coughing.  I'll also toot my own horn a bit and volunteer that I got to help the bartender translate for a number of other pilgrims.  In fact, we have not stopped yet in a bar or restaurant where I haven't been complemented on my Spanish, though a few of the grumpier barkeep have noted that my Madrid accent is really offputting given the current political environment here in Spain.

The second six miles of the trek proved to be a bit colder and wetter than the first but we continued to make good time.  As I've mentioned before there are significantly fewer pilgrims than in the summer but we continued to meet enough interesting people to keep us entertained. The first I will christen Sir Scrapes-A-Lot.  Sir Scrapes-A-Lot was a blissfully unaware German pilgrim named Carlo whose poles were broken so that no matter how high he lifted them, they scraped on the pavement.  You can imagine the sound that made and I assure you that my tolerance, and Paul's, for that sound was quite low.  We outwalked him as quick as we could.  The second set of pilgrim entertainment was a younger Japanese couple I'll refer to as "The Minions" or in Spanish, "Los Peregrinos Minions".  They had raincovers for their backpacks that were bright yellow, as were their ponchos, which were long enough to give them the appearance of Minions, particularly because their knees, like ours, were not working as well as they should and thus they were wobbling a bit.

Clearly, Paul and I are not least bit judgmental of our fellow walkers, in the least.

We stopped for lunch more or less.at the bottom of the hill in Las Herrerias.  Paul was very quick to suggest that another shot of aguardiente might be necessary to fortify us against the upcoming climb, since it had started to snow.  I did not exactly protest.  Fortunately, the snow passed by the time we finished our lunch and we began our climb to Cebreiro in good weather.

The climb to Cebreiro is tough.  It is rocky, steep, and muddy, but beautiful.  We managed it in about two hours from Las Herrerias, with two rest breaks.  There was lots of snow by the time we reached the top.  We also encountered an elderly pilgrim descending.  He had walked into Santiago a week before, and showed us his Compostela.  He was runn in ng short of money, so he said, but if he could get to the donation-only hostel in Trabadelo, he would be OK, he insisted.  We gave him enough Euros for a cup of coffee and a sandwich, and a hug, and sent him on downhill.  I hope he fared well in the poor weather and will find shelter and food as he needs it.

Somewhere on the way up the first and steepest part of the climb, the rather large blood blister on my left heel, which I have affectionately been referring to as "The Donald" decided to pop.  Thankfully it has. It been as painful as I feared.

I do have to give a shout out to Paul, my traveling companion, for trying to learn Spanish and for not being afraid to use it, even amidst my near-constant uptightcorrecting.  He's also gloriously tolerant of my random history and culture pontificating as we traverse various sections of the path.

Again, another great day on the Camino.  We had our foot tonic, dinner, and chatted with some of the other pilgrims staying in our hotel.  The next day promised to be a short one, on 13 miles.down to Triacastela, but the weather was scheduled to deteriorate further, which indeed it did.