I now have five blogs on some of the lesser traveled Caminos. So I thought I would link them all together in case you are looking for some suggestions. Each of these Caminos is special in its own way, and I would happily walk any of them again. If I am really lucky, I will!
2010: Via de la Plata http://laurie-ontheviadelaplata.blogspot.com/
2011: Madrid to Sahagun (Camino de Madrid) - Sahagun to Ponferrada (Camino Frances) - Ponferrada to Santiago (Camino de Invierno) http://peregrina2000.blogspot.com/
2012: Santander to San Vicente (Norte) - San Vicente to Potes (Camino Lebaniego) - Potes to Leon (Camino Vadiniense) - Leon to Oviedo (Camino de Salvador) - Oviedo to Santiago (Camino Primitivo) http://caminovadiniense.blogspot.com/
2013: Camino de Levante (Valencia to Zamora) - Camino Sanabres (Zamora to Santiago)
http://levante2013.blogspot.com/
2014: Camino Olvidado: Bilbao to Ponferrada and then on the Camino Francés
http://caminoolvidado.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Sunday, June 19, 2011
In Santiago
It´s always kind of a down-er to say that I´m here. I keep thinking that one of these years when I arrive in Santiago I will say, ok, that was my last Camino. But it didn´t happen this year, so I guess I will soon be thinking about where to walk next!
I have had two nice days of walking with people all around. It was quite a different feeling. But I was glad to have a young German friend to walk into Santiago with -- we got up early this morning to arrive in time to get our compostela (the certificate that tells you that you have officially completed the Camino, as if you couldn´t figure that out for yourself), and then make it to the pilgrim´s mass.
Yesterday´s walk was beautiful and rural, through forests, over isolated roman bridges, a few romanesque churches thrown in. Today´s walk, all 17 km of it, was essentially through the outskirts of Santiago. It was a continual up and down, one after the other, until FINALLY, we came up a hill and could see the cathedral spires. As we got into the old part of Santiago, you could see pilgrims all merging from different Caminos onto the road to the pilgrim´s office,. There is a new pilgrim´s office, in my mind no improvement over the old one except that the stairs don´t squeak because they´re new. So there we were, all in one long line waiting to get our compostela. I´m not exactly sure why I keep getting them, but it just sort of seems like the thing to do, to get the official certificate, "suitable for framing." After that we took the obligatory picture in front of the cathedral,
and then popped in to see if the botafumeiro was in place -- if it was going to be flown at the mass at 12, it would be set up at 11. As we walked into the Cathedral, it was like magic. The 10:00 mass was nearly over, the priest was putting the incense into the botafumeiro, and the 7 men in brown robes were getting ready to hoist it up. And for the next few minutes, we watched as that enormous incense burner went swinging from side to side, reaching an amazing height. I´ve seen it fly a number of times, but it always gives me goose bumps to think that they have been flying this thing for hundreds of years, originally to kill the smell of all the dirty peregrinos, but now it just reminds us how we are all a part of that same flow over the centuries.
So here I am back in the Hotel Costa Vella. I think it´s a sign that I´ve been here too often when the woman at the desk jumps up to hug me, and her husband comes running out of the kitchen to say hi. This is a family owned hotel, so the owners are always there taking care of business. I was delighted to find that they had had a recent cancellation, so they moved me from their new "vanguardist" hotel, much fancier and more expensive, to my old favorite, where I will stay for two nights. And the weather is fabulous so I will be able to eat my breakfasts out back in the very nice garden.
So, for now, I´m off to be a tourist again, at least after I can check into my room, wash some clothes and take a real shower without wearing my water sandals for fear of what I might catch from the floor.
I have had two nice days of walking with people all around. It was quite a different feeling. But I was glad to have a young German friend to walk into Santiago with -- we got up early this morning to arrive in time to get our compostela (the certificate that tells you that you have officially completed the Camino, as if you couldn´t figure that out for yourself), and then make it to the pilgrim´s mass.
Yesterday´s walk was beautiful and rural, through forests, over isolated roman bridges, a few romanesque churches thrown in. Today´s walk, all 17 km of it, was essentially through the outskirts of Santiago. It was a continual up and down, one after the other, until FINALLY, we came up a hill and could see the cathedral spires. As we got into the old part of Santiago, you could see pilgrims all merging from different Caminos onto the road to the pilgrim´s office,. There is a new pilgrim´s office, in my mind no improvement over the old one except that the stairs don´t squeak because they´re new. So there we were, all in one long line waiting to get our compostela. I´m not exactly sure why I keep getting them, but it just sort of seems like the thing to do, to get the official certificate, "suitable for framing." After that we took the obligatory picture in front of the cathedral,
So here I am back in the Hotel Costa Vella. I think it´s a sign that I´ve been here too often when the woman at the desk jumps up to hug me, and her husband comes running out of the kitchen to say hi. This is a family owned hotel, so the owners are always there taking care of business. I was delighted to find that they had had a recent cancellation, so they moved me from their new "vanguardist" hotel, much fancier and more expensive, to my old favorite, where I will stay for two nights. And the weather is fabulous so I will be able to eat my breakfasts out back in the very nice garden.
So, for now, I´m off to be a tourist again, at least after I can check into my room, wash some clothes and take a real shower without wearing my water sandals for fear of what I might catch from the floor.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Two days from Santiago
I left the solitary Camino de Invierno yesterday, with a walk through cow country. Walking through cow country in Galicia means a couple of things -- having to dodge cow poop constantly, having to step aside when the herds go in or out to graze, having lots of local people to talk to early in the morning when they go to milk the cows (I talked to one woman whose 20-odd cows produce 350 liters twice a day, and she told me when she was young, they did it all by hand), and, worst of all, lots of loose dogs whose main job is to guard the cows but who also enjoy scaring the daylights out of me.
Since this Camino is un-traveled, the dogs are much more likely to be loose. I´ve had a lot of growling, mean looking dogs get near me, and have surprised myself at how I just kept on walking. Well, what else was I to do? Anyway, I am glad that the dogs on this last part of the walk will be tied up, there are just too many people around for dogs to run loose.
So, here I am on the end of the camino I walked last summer. I´m going to take it slow, since I don´t have a hotel reservation in Santiago till Sunday. Two more days of about 12 miles a day makes for a pretty lazy end to my camino.
Last night in my first albergue in a long time, I met a bunch of characters -- a German guy who has been walking for more than 6 weeks and who leaves every day at 4:30 a.m., a Spaniard whose only goal was to get to Santiago and who walked straight along the highways defying death at every turn, and a sweet Portuguese couple who try to make it 5-8 miles a day. So I will probably not see any of these guys again, but oh well.
Finishing a camino is always a double-edged sword. Not much elation, but certainly some sense of relief -- whew, I´m here. But there is also the very strong sense of, oh, no, I´m not going to walk tomorrow, what will I do. I will just have to figure out how to reconcile those emotions, like I always do, and I usually deal with it by starting to plan my next Camino. So if you are interested in walking next summer, now´s the time to speak up and be heard.....
Since this Camino is un-traveled, the dogs are much more likely to be loose. I´ve had a lot of growling, mean looking dogs get near me, and have surprised myself at how I just kept on walking. Well, what else was I to do? Anyway, I am glad that the dogs on this last part of the walk will be tied up, there are just too many people around for dogs to run loose.
So, here I am on the end of the camino I walked last summer. I´m going to take it slow, since I don´t have a hotel reservation in Santiago till Sunday. Two more days of about 12 miles a day makes for a pretty lazy end to my camino.
Last night in my first albergue in a long time, I met a bunch of characters -- a German guy who has been walking for more than 6 weeks and who leaves every day at 4:30 a.m., a Spaniard whose only goal was to get to Santiago and who walked straight along the highways defying death at every turn, and a sweet Portuguese couple who try to make it 5-8 miles a day. So I will probably not see any of these guys again, but oh well.
Finishing a camino is always a double-edged sword. Not much elation, but certainly some sense of relief -- whew, I´m here. But there is also the very strong sense of, oh, no, I´m not going to walk tomorrow, what will I do. I will just have to figure out how to reconcile those emotions, like I always do, and I usually deal with it by starting to plan my next Camino. So if you are interested in walking next summer, now´s the time to speak up and be heard.....
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Rest day in beautiful rural Galicia
Yesterday afternoon, after I finished my long and pretty hard third day in a row, I was in the town of Rodeiro and called the Casa de Santo Estevo, www.ribeirasacra.com, whose owner has become a camino friend. Within a half hour, Ian was in town to pick me up and take me back to the little piece of paradise he shares with his Dutch wife Irene.
I can only say that it´s hard to imagine a more perfect place for enjoying the views, the green, the water.... AND the incredible romanesque church next door. Walking around the outside was a big treat in itself, but late in the afternoon as we were sitting outside under a big umbrella chatting, Irene saw the "woman with the keys" arrive to put some flowers in the church. Off I sped, and got to spend some minutes inside. It is a tall romanesque church, with some of the high arches beginning to transition into a gothic point, but the romanesque in the capitals and the doorway is unmistakable. In fact, Spain´s experts have concluded that the door was carved by the same Maestro Mateo who did the Pórtico de la Gloria in the Cathedral of Santiago. For me, the real show stopper was the font -- a baptismal font, but certainly pre-Christian, just covered with all sorts of unintelligible signs that some call runes, I think. It was pretty incredible. This is an incredibly rich part of Galicia, filled with romanesque churches and monasteries, stunning landscapes, it´s not called the Ribeira Sacra (holy river bank) for nothing!
I got the royal treatment in the Casa de Santo Estevo, a great dinner, some fine wines from the region, a late night sitting outside watching the night sky arrive. I wish I could have kept my eyes open long enough to see the stars really come up, but by 11, I was ready to pack it in, having gotten just a glimpse of what was coming next. But the pull of a comfy bed, with cool breeze coming through the window was just too strong.
Today, Irene and Ian took me to some incredible view points of the Sil River. Their house is located on the Miño, with lots of beautiful terraced vineyards. The part of the Sil we saw, however, was much too steep and rocky for that, truly a forbidding but majestic river gorge. At the very end of the tour, we stopped at some vineyards that are grown on 45 degree slopes. Imagine tending those vines and picking those grapes! Lunch outside on the terrace of their casa rural, and then off I went, back to solitude.
And now I´m back in Rodeiro, the town where Ian picked me up yesterday, ready to start off again tomorrow. I will probably connect with the Via de la Plata tomorrow, so I should only have one more day alone. I´ll have to make sure to think lots and lots of great thoughts tomorrow.
I got the royal treatment in the Casa de Santo Estevo, a great dinner, some fine wines from the region, a late night sitting outside watching the night sky arrive. I wish I could have kept my eyes open long enough to see the stars really come up, but by 11, I was ready to pack it in, having gotten just a glimpse of what was coming next. But the pull of a comfy bed, with cool breeze coming through the window was just too strong.
Today, Irene and Ian took me to some incredible view points of the Sil River. Their house is located on the Miño, with lots of beautiful terraced vineyards. The part of the Sil we saw, however, was much too steep and rocky for that, truly a forbidding but majestic river gorge. At the very end of the tour, we stopped at some vineyards that are grown on 45 degree slopes. Imagine tending those vines and picking those grapes! Lunch outside on the terrace of their casa rural, and then off I went, back to solitude.
And now I´m back in Rodeiro, the town where Ian picked me up yesterday, ready to start off again tomorrow. I will probably connect with the Via de la Plata tomorrow, so I should only have one more day alone. I´ll have to make sure to think lots and lots of great thoughts tomorrow.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Beware of scallop shells pointing straight ahead
Well, the good news is that I am in Rodeiro, today´s destination, having had a third very hard day in a row. Well, no, that´s not the really good news -- the really good news is that I´m sitting in a little bar with a blaring TV waiting for a camino friend to come pick me up and take me to his family´s casa rural! He is British and his wife is Dutch and they run what looks from the pictures like an absolutely charming place hidden in the woods. So this means I will take a day off -- no walking tomorrow!
Today´s walk was beautiful, but pretty tough. The first 8 kms were confusing, with scallop shells on big granite mojones (I´ve been told the English word is bollard, but I´ve never heard that word) pointing in the wrong direction. I had been warned of the first one, so was ready to go in a different way than the shell marker indicated. But there were at least three or four more, all pointing straight ahead, when the guide book, and occasionally painted yellow arrows, indicated another direction. The woman I spoke with yesterday out in the middle of nowhere has the explanation -- the Xunta de Galicia (regional government) spent big bucks to put these huge granite markers with shell signs all along the Invierno to give it an official status, and also, presumably to help pilgrims find their way. Well, when the workers from the Xunta showed up with their mojones to install, a few realities presented themselves: first, that their little trucks couldn´t drive through the places where it´s easiest to get lost, so those areas are marking-free. Second, they really couldn´t have cared less about where these signs went, so they just plunked them down, shells pointing any which way, in order to empty their truck and finish their work day. I think that´s probably the essence of it, but the wonderful thing is that there are small groups of camino lovers in all these towns who take it upon themselves to get the yellow paint and help point us on our way. And usually, it works just fine.
I had a pretty stiff ascent, up into the clouds/fog, and when I was presented with an optional two km detour up to a sacred spot, the geographical center of Galicia, where there is a shrine and much holiness, I couldn´t resist. No matter that the promised beautiful view was going to be whited out, I just figured I was unlikely to return soon, and so I should go see what it had to offer. Well, what it had to offer was a pretty ermita, a nice cross, and large areas of rooted up earth where another boar had been at it again. So, back down I went, and the rest of the walk was either along the ridge with those huge windmills at my side, or winding through small green hamlets with ancient buildings.
One thing I´ve seen a lot of today has been something called "peto de ánimas", 16th century granite blocks with carved out figures of souls suffering in purgatory, and with a slot to make a donation to ease their suffering. Of course the boxes aren´t still collecting donations, but it is kind of funny to think about how people could have thought that paying money to the church was going to help the pour souls in purgatory.
So, if my arithmetic is right, I have four more days of walking and I will be in Santiago. I have really enjoyed this walk, but the solitary part is a bit hard -- today, for instance, I didn´t see one human being for the first 20 kms, and after that it was only a few farmers till I arrived in this town. But my last three days will be familiar ground, when I connect with the Via de la Plata, the camino I walked last year. From the reports I get from friends who are there, there is an abundance of pilgrims, so I will not be alone for long!
Today´s walk was beautiful, but pretty tough. The first 8 kms were confusing, with scallop shells on big granite mojones (I´ve been told the English word is bollard, but I´ve never heard that word) pointing in the wrong direction. I had been warned of the first one, so was ready to go in a different way than the shell marker indicated. But there were at least three or four more, all pointing straight ahead, when the guide book, and occasionally painted yellow arrows, indicated another direction. The woman I spoke with yesterday out in the middle of nowhere has the explanation -- the Xunta de Galicia (regional government) spent big bucks to put these huge granite markers with shell signs all along the Invierno to give it an official status, and also, presumably to help pilgrims find their way. Well, when the workers from the Xunta showed up with their mojones to install, a few realities presented themselves: first, that their little trucks couldn´t drive through the places where it´s easiest to get lost, so those areas are marking-free. Second, they really couldn´t have cared less about where these signs went, so they just plunked them down, shells pointing any which way, in order to empty their truck and finish their work day. I think that´s probably the essence of it, but the wonderful thing is that there are small groups of camino lovers in all these towns who take it upon themselves to get the yellow paint and help point us on our way. And usually, it works just fine.
I had a pretty stiff ascent, up into the clouds/fog, and when I was presented with an optional two km detour up to a sacred spot, the geographical center of Galicia, where there is a shrine and much holiness, I couldn´t resist. No matter that the promised beautiful view was going to be whited out, I just figured I was unlikely to return soon, and so I should go see what it had to offer. Well, what it had to offer was a pretty ermita, a nice cross, and large areas of rooted up earth where another boar had been at it again. So, back down I went, and the rest of the walk was either along the ridge with those huge windmills at my side, or winding through small green hamlets with ancient buildings.
One thing I´ve seen a lot of today has been something called "peto de ánimas", 16th century granite blocks with carved out figures of souls suffering in purgatory, and with a slot to make a donation to ease their suffering. Of course the boxes aren´t still collecting donations, but it is kind of funny to think about how people could have thought that paying money to the church was going to help the pour souls in purgatory.
So, if my arithmetic is right, I have four more days of walking and I will be in Santiago. I have really enjoyed this walk, but the solitary part is a bit hard -- today, for instance, I didn´t see one human being for the first 20 kms, and after that it was only a few farmers till I arrived in this town. But my last three days will be familiar ground, when I connect with the Via de la Plata, the camino I walked last year. From the reports I get from friends who are there, there is an abundance of pilgrims, so I will not be alone for long!
Monday, June 13, 2011
Belesar´s elbows down to the Minho River
Well, the glamor ended this morning after my 6 a.m. breakfast in the parador. The lovely night "watch-woman" made me a fruit plate, along with some pastries, and let me make my own coffee with one of those fancy machines that you put the capsule into. By 6:40, I was on the way out of Monforte de Lemos.
After about 6 or 7 kms on a very un-used paved road, there was a turn off into what you might call a "green tunnel." Beautiful, they are, as they take you through the country-side on paths between two rock walls on either side, but peregrinos know they frequently spell trouble. In about 5 minutes, I had already sunk into mud about 3 " above my boots. Ok, time for Plan B -- get off the path by climbing up on the side in a break in the stone wall and walk on higher ground. Well, that sounded good, but the higher round was filled with brambles, stickers, overgrown with green stuff generally. I fell backwards and miraculously managed to avoid falling down into the goop I had just tried to avoid by climbing higher. Getting up was a bit difficult -- I think I sounded a lot like the wild boar I saw a couple of days ago and then heard ripping up the dirt and growth all around -- there´s a term of art for this -- snouting? routing? rooting? There were no arrows in this maze of paths and I just kept trying to stay on the "main path" but I was not ever sure.
Somehow, miraculously, not only did I manage to stay in one piece and avoid serious injury, but I also emerged into a clearing (after pushing my way through overgrowth so thick it was almost impassable) and saw a mojón (a camino marker). I was stunned, I had actually gone the right way! I was even more amazed when I ran into a resident a few hundred meters further on who told me that everyone gets lost in this stretch. All it needs is a can of paint and some arrows, and I wish I had the time to do it.
The walk changed dramatically after that -- 6 or 7 km in the continuous drizzle to a beautiful romanesque church in Diamondi, where there are two very sweet cow heads looking down over the doorway. Just as I arrived, the rain stopped, so I could take my poncho off and get out my camera. From there it was about 3 km down on Roman Road (I´ve walked on a lot of roman roads, and this one was particularly unfriendly), but the reward was going down towards the Minho River, with vineyards and small hamlets looking over everything. This is the stretch called Belesar´s elbows, presumably named after the shape of the downhill path.
Even the steep up afterwards was well worth it, it was beautiful and lush. A woman emerged from a house in a remote hamlet and told me to eat cherries, eat them here, they are going to rot. So I took her up on it, and it gave me the energy I needed to finish the rest of the walk into Chantada.
Well, here I am in the Pensión Gamallo (?). I have stayed in worst places before, I´m sure, it´s just that I can´t think of them. It´s pretty bad, but it´s just a night, and I had a great meal in the Mesón Lucas, so that kind of offsets the grungy pensión. And then tomorrow another 28 km up and down and up and down.....
After about 6 or 7 kms on a very un-used paved road, there was a turn off into what you might call a "green tunnel." Beautiful, they are, as they take you through the country-side on paths between two rock walls on either side, but peregrinos know they frequently spell trouble. In about 5 minutes, I had already sunk into mud about 3 " above my boots. Ok, time for Plan B -- get off the path by climbing up on the side in a break in the stone wall and walk on higher ground. Well, that sounded good, but the higher round was filled with brambles, stickers, overgrown with green stuff generally. I fell backwards and miraculously managed to avoid falling down into the goop I had just tried to avoid by climbing higher. Getting up was a bit difficult -- I think I sounded a lot like the wild boar I saw a couple of days ago and then heard ripping up the dirt and growth all around -- there´s a term of art for this -- snouting? routing? rooting? There were no arrows in this maze of paths and I just kept trying to stay on the "main path" but I was not ever sure.
Somehow, miraculously, not only did I manage to stay in one piece and avoid serious injury, but I also emerged into a clearing (after pushing my way through overgrowth so thick it was almost impassable) and saw a mojón (a camino marker). I was stunned, I had actually gone the right way! I was even more amazed when I ran into a resident a few hundred meters further on who told me that everyone gets lost in this stretch. All it needs is a can of paint and some arrows, and I wish I had the time to do it.
The walk changed dramatically after that -- 6 or 7 km in the continuous drizzle to a beautiful romanesque church in Diamondi, where there are two very sweet cow heads looking down over the doorway. Just as I arrived, the rain stopped, so I could take my poncho off and get out my camera. From there it was about 3 km down on Roman Road (I´ve walked on a lot of roman roads, and this one was particularly unfriendly), but the reward was going down towards the Minho River, with vineyards and small hamlets looking over everything. This is the stretch called Belesar´s elbows, presumably named after the shape of the downhill path.
Even the steep up afterwards was well worth it, it was beautiful and lush. A woman emerged from a house in a remote hamlet and told me to eat cherries, eat them here, they are going to rot. So I took her up on it, and it gave me the energy I needed to finish the rest of the walk into Chantada.
Well, here I am in the Pensión Gamallo (?). I have stayed in worst places before, I´m sure, it´s just that I can´t think of them. It´s pretty bad, but it´s just a night, and I had a great meal in the Mesón Lucas, so that kind of offsets the grungy pensión. And then tomorrow another 28 km up and down and up and down.....
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Made it to Monforte de Lemos
Well, those who said this is a hard day are absolutely right. It´s 35 kms, but the kicker is that there are three ups and downs, which add to the fun. But it was fine. The owner of the hostal where I spent last night very nicely agreed to leave a thermos of boiling water outside my room when she went to bed. That meant that at 6 in the morning it was still very warm, just perfect for my envelope of nescafé and a few squirts of condensed milk in a tube.
I was on the road by 6:15, and checked in to my lodging for the evening at 3:15 or 3:30, so it was a very long day. I did rest, once after the second up and down, but there were flies everywhere so it was a quick stop. Then a few kms along, there was a bar in the town that´s 23 km from the starting point and 12 from the end. A perfect place to stop. I had a good café con leche, in a bar that is located on a street that is (still) named Avenida de José Antonio Primo de Rivera. Wow, he´s one of those early fascist Franco guys. But I didn´t stand on principle, and had a very nice rest with boots and socks off in an outdoor café.
The walk went through many rural Galicia spots, some incredibly beautiful hamlets, paths by several rivers (the Lor and the Saa), and those are the absolute best because there are green tunnels of native growth and you just walk along in an enchanted forest.
Luckily, the ascents went from worst to bad to not so bad, but even so, I was dragging by the time I got into the outskirts of Monforte de Lemos. This is a pretty big town, it even has a Spanish parador in it. On the way in, I was thinking, gee, Joe and I have a lot of points on the Parador system, I know because I got an email last December telling me they were expiring. Well, this is Spain, and maybe expiration is a fluid concept. So I schlepped up to the parador, which is in an old palacio and next to the remaining castle tower (another 35 or 40 hot minutes from my entry into Monforte near the train tracks). It was hot and sunny, but I made it. I explained my situation to the very nice woman at the reception. She called Madrid, to the mother lode of the Amigos de Paradores, and voilà, those expired points were reinstated and I was able to stay in the parador for free! It´s beautiful, furnished in a traditional way (unlike some of the newer paradores, which are done sleek and minimalist -- what is sleek and minimalist doing in a 14th century palace??).
But while some might enjoy the architecture, others the service, still others the food, the best part of a parador for anyone walking to Santiago is that it means having a big bathtub, lots of soap, and those huge body-size thick parador towels to wash and wring out clothes. In my exuberance for the luxury of today´s clothes-washing, I dropped my pants into the tub and only later realized that stuck in the pocket were my printed camino de invierno guide and all the many notes I had scribbled today on the way. Grrrrrr. Well, those pages are now laid out on the floor, hopefully drying, so that I can salvage something.
I have 5 or 6 days walking left, I can´t believe it. I am so glad I took this route, it is really spectacular and un-visited. If anyone wants a guided tour, I will volunteer to walk you through it.
I was on the road by 6:15, and checked in to my lodging for the evening at 3:15 or 3:30, so it was a very long day. I did rest, once after the second up and down, but there were flies everywhere so it was a quick stop. Then a few kms along, there was a bar in the town that´s 23 km from the starting point and 12 from the end. A perfect place to stop. I had a good café con leche, in a bar that is located on a street that is (still) named Avenida de José Antonio Primo de Rivera. Wow, he´s one of those early fascist Franco guys. But I didn´t stand on principle, and had a very nice rest with boots and socks off in an outdoor café.
The walk went through many rural Galicia spots, some incredibly beautiful hamlets, paths by several rivers (the Lor and the Saa), and those are the absolute best because there are green tunnels of native growth and you just walk along in an enchanted forest.
Luckily, the ascents went from worst to bad to not so bad, but even so, I was dragging by the time I got into the outskirts of Monforte de Lemos. This is a pretty big town, it even has a Spanish parador in it. On the way in, I was thinking, gee, Joe and I have a lot of points on the Parador system, I know because I got an email last December telling me they were expiring. Well, this is Spain, and maybe expiration is a fluid concept. So I schlepped up to the parador, which is in an old palacio and next to the remaining castle tower (another 35 or 40 hot minutes from my entry into Monforte near the train tracks). It was hot and sunny, but I made it. I explained my situation to the very nice woman at the reception. She called Madrid, to the mother lode of the Amigos de Paradores, and voilà, those expired points were reinstated and I was able to stay in the parador for free! It´s beautiful, furnished in a traditional way (unlike some of the newer paradores, which are done sleek and minimalist -- what is sleek and minimalist doing in a 14th century palace??).
But while some might enjoy the architecture, others the service, still others the food, the best part of a parador for anyone walking to Santiago is that it means having a big bathtub, lots of soap, and those huge body-size thick parador towels to wash and wring out clothes. In my exuberance for the luxury of today´s clothes-washing, I dropped my pants into the tub and only later realized that stuck in the pocket were my printed camino de invierno guide and all the many notes I had scribbled today on the way. Grrrrrr. Well, those pages are now laid out on the floor, hopefully drying, so that I can salvage something.
I have 5 or 6 days walking left, I can´t believe it. I am so glad I took this route, it is really spectacular and un-visited. If anyone wants a guided tour, I will volunteer to walk you through it.
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