Day 2 on the Camino de Invierno

Well, I had my doubts. That last night in the beautiful, large (180 beds), efficient and comfortable (two bunk beds per room) albergue in Ponferrada, I sat around and said goodbye to a number of people I had met over the last few days walking. Some said, oh, don´t go on the Camino de Invierno, stay here on the Francés; others said, oh the Invierno is lonely and not well marked; etc. I was tempted, but then thinking about the fact that there were 180 people sleeping in this albergue, I just decided it was going to be too crazy and crowded to continue on.

So, after our 6 a.m. breakfast of coffee in an envelope plus evaporated milk in a tube, Paulette and I gave each other a big hug, and she went her way while I went mine. She was the last peregrina I´ve seen.

The marking was excellent. And though I had 28 kms with more than 850 meters of elevation gain, I did better than I thought -- I had been afraid that all those flat kms on the meseta would have gotten me out of shape, but I was fine. The first big ascent goes up to the Castle of Cornatel, built on a high rock at the top of a mountain in a spot you can´t really imagine building on. And since the Camino takes a valley route around and up, I got to see it from all sides. I didn´t go in though, since it was 10 when I got there and the doors open at 11.

The second big ascent was the one that took me up to my night´s destination, called Las Médulas. It´s an eerie and spectacular place at the same time. The Romans in the 2nd century had found gold in some nearby river, so they knew there was gold in the mountains. They dug hundreds of kms of tunnels through the mountain here, and channels to take water from the river to the tunnels, then they turned on the water and it exploded the insides of the mountains. So what is left standing are the supports, totally desnuded, just sheer mountain-guts. Of course to see it all, I had to walk another 5-8 kms, but hey, it was without pack and without boots. A walk in the park!

Today´s walk was a bit shorter (25 km) and less strenuous, but just like the past two days in that cherry trees and chestnut trees are everywhere. An old lady in a little hamlet told me which cherry trees I should eat from, since they were on abandoned property, so I carefully followed her advice and filled my pockets. I had my fill of both the dark red and the yellow-light red variety, and they were both delicious. I am now walking alongside the Sil River, which expands and contracts dramatically over the course of the walk. Sometimes it´s wide and lazy, other times it´s in a narrow rock-filled course, just crashing around with lots of white water. There is a fair amount of industry on the banks, but there are plenty of beautiful secluded spots as well.

Less than two weeks till I´m home, hard to believe! Tomorrow is a really short day for me, only 14 kms, but the next town after that is 28 more kms away, so I think I´ll pass on the 42 km option.