28 km to Quiroga

WOW, what a beautiful day from A Rúa to Quiroga. But first I want to remember something that happened yesterday afternoon. While I was sitting waiting for internet in the library in A Rúa, there were two young women using two of the machines (of 3). They had multiple tatoos, were laughing loudly, giving pink frosting doughnuts to their kids in strollers to shut them up, and were generally being annoying to me and another old man waiting to use the computers. I did not have a favorable impression. Well, after I finished my internet and went on my way, I didn´t give them another thought. Not at least for ten minutes, when I saw one of them running after me and calling, señora, señora. Turns out that one of them had seen my passport lying on the floor and had been running around looking for me. It had fallen out of my fanny pack somehow, and she had seen it on the library floor. I gave her a hug and asked if I could give her something, and she looked like she didn´t understand what I meant. And then it sort of hit me hard, wow, don´t judge those books by their covers. A good lesson.

Turns out that the hospitalera, Asunción, of the little albergue yesterday was a clairvoyant and an alternative medicine fan. Her 88 year old mom made us lunch, and then she took me up to a small hamlet way way up where there was a little romanesque church tucked away. She knew plenty of the people in the small town, so we talked with them and heard their gripes about the government, the church, and life in general (for example, how badly the neighbor is treating his cows), and then went to one look-out where Asunción told me how the mountain had opened up for her and a big bright pink lotus flower emerged, and it just went on from there. All I wanted to do was get back to town and sleep, but I couldn´t be rude, so I went along on her walk down memory lane where so many of these things happened. Finally, by 9:45 p.m. (WAY late for me), I was back in the albergue and ready to sleep -- except that first I had to tour her consult room, filled with tons of bottles of colored oils and extracts of things (this has a name that my trendy friends will know), as well as a table where she works on her clients and follows all sorts of star-laden paths to wellness. It must work for some people, because her clients come from a long way to be put on that table.

This morning I was up at 6 and out by 6:30 -- luckily I was able to make an instant coffee in their kitchen before leaving, so I didn´t get a caffeine headache. Wow, was today beautiful. The camino went up and down from river hamlet up to town up above (which is sometimes annoying but good for the elevation gain), and at all times I could either see or hear the river or one of its tributaries. The views were amazing, and every now and then I could snatch one without either the national highway or the train tracks in view. Both of them criss cross the river back and forth, seemingly at will, while I keep my feet firmly planted on the right side of the river. It was beautiful.

In one of the many little hamlets I passed through (all of which have huge numbers of houses falling down and abandoned), a little car with 3 people (grandma, husband and wife) stopped and rolled down their window. Are you a pilgrim? the mother asked. You´re the first pilgrim I´ve seen here on the Camino de Invierno, please hug the saint for me. Are you walking alone (most common question)? When I said yes, she said, no you´re wrong, God is walking with you. Hmm, that´s quite a thought. But I have to admit that at every point of the camino where I needed help today, help was there. It was in the form of a man tending his grapes, a guy whacking the weeds around the castle, someone driving by slowly who knew I was off the camino, or someone just out taking care of his sheep. Good karma maybe, but maybe something else.

The town of Quiroga is not much to look at, but its situation right on the Rio Sil is spectacular. A very nice Cuban woman who was working in a little shop gave me a very good recommendation on both hostal and restaurant. We both agreed that the two of us could handle the US-Cuba problems just fine outselves, we don´t need those politicians. So I´m in the Hostal Quiper, with a nice clean room and bath for 18€, and had a very good lunch of salad, chops, and cheese with membrillo for dessert.

Tomorrow is a question mark. I will either walk 23 km to Puebla de Brollón, or slog on to Monforte de Lemos for another 12. I would really like to do the latter, but it will depend on how I´m feeling. The weather is very very good, but is getting a little warmer, which is no fun for the pilgrim with backpack. For the life of me, I can´t figure out why thousands and thousands go on the Camino Francés and I´m all alone on the Camino de Invierno. Crazy.

Made it to A Rúa

I had a very short day today, only 14 kms (well, I admit you have to add a couple to that number because I got lost once or twice, once for a couple of kms, till some nice young couple with a baby came by in a car and straightened me out). I was able to start late, which meant I could even get a café con leche in a nearby bar before starting to walk. The next town is 28 km beyond where I am right now, and that´s more than I can handle. I´m in wine country (one of Spain´s many), there are vineyards and wineries everywhere.

Though the Camino de Invierno was well marked until I got to the edge of Castilla & León, once I entered Galicia, things got a bit more spotty. I´ve gotten lost a few times, but was always able to backtrack and get things right again. I´m taking tons of notes so that I can help revise the English guide -- makes me feel like a girl scout again (oh wait, I don´t think I made it much past the Brownies stage).

This town has a private albergue here, something connected with a Casa Rural (rural tourism house). My first task upon arrival was to go to the town hall to get a stamp for my credencial, as well as to get some general information on internet, etc. As I was heading down the street from the town hall, I heard someone shout "Laura" -- turns out it is the president of the small Camino de Invierno Association here in town. I had been in contact with them for some suggestions and told them I would be arriving today. What a nice man, a very dedicated camino volunteer. He led me to the internet, told me he´d be back to walk me up to the albergue and to give me a written guidebook that his association has published. All help is greatly appreciated, because the arrows are not consistently well placed. But I´m never far from civilization, there are always people nearby, and it´s beautiful!

I am staying in a private albergue that is the home of Asunción and her 88 year old mother. The house has been in the family for 700 years, family lore has it, and there is about 3 feet of a column sticking up in the middle of a courtyard. Asunción says it is Roman, and that when they remodeled the house they dug down at least 10´and never found the bottom. They think it formed part of a temple because they have seen ruins of an altar nearby. There are also water channels running through the whole upper old town which have been confirmed by the "experts" as Roman, from the second century more or less. Amazing.

I ate lunch with Asunción and her mother, who had just gathered the season´s first potatoes and served a big plate of them with some local chicken. She told me that she goes to her garden plot every day and that when she touches the dirt she feels the strength of the earth coming up through her body. This afternoon she is going out with a sickle to cut down some weeds, says it keeps her young, and that when she stops doing it her body will just stop altogether.

So I had been thinking that maybe I would go to a few tasting rooms this afternoon to sample some of the local wine, but when Asunción offered to drive me to a jewel of a romanesque church nearby, there was no contest. And to top it off, a friend of hers has the key, so we will be able to go inside. And that will be the end of a very nice day.

I will probably not have access to computers over the weekend, since the libraries will be closed and I will not be in a town big enough to have private internet cafés. Hope to log in on Monday, and by then I should be less than 100 km from Santiago!

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.

In Ponferrada, my last day on the Francés

Today´s walk was filled with beautiful views of surrounding green mountains, but unfortunately it was such a steep descent that we had to have our eyes on the ground for a lot of the time. We are entering into a much more mountainous part of Spain, and the fields are brilliant green and filled with lots of crops. We got to the albergue in Ponferrada by noon (it was a short 17 km day) and got checked into a girls-only room with two bunk beds. Wow, that is heaven!

My two closest friends of the last week on the Francés and I went out to a good-bye lunch. We went to a rather fancy (at least, fancy for peregrinos) restaurant in an old stone building, with balconies looking out over flower gardens and had a 14 euro lunch. That´s pretty pricey for pilgrims, but having the first course be a plate of grilled vegetables was alone worth the price. Then merluza (hake?) in a green sauce with even MORE vegetables (yes, we are vegetable-deprived on the Camino), and a cheese-cuajada cake for dessert. The wine that came with the meal was from the region, El Bierzo, and my friend from California was able to describe its legs and I don´t know what other features, but the bottom line was that she pronounced it very drinkable (I guess that´s high praise coming from someone from Sonoma). We are now going to spend an hour or so walking around the city´s absolutely fantastic templar castle.

Tomorrow I head out alone, I have a guidebook and will never be far from a town so I am not worried. I am hoping to meet back up with some of these guys when I reach Santiago, but I´m walking a longer route than they are so we may not overlap.

No more albergues for me, it will be pensiones and hotels from now on. I can´t say I´ll miss the snoring and the communal bathrooms, but I will miss these guys, that´s for sure. I am hoping I´ll have email access along the way, but if not, in 10 days or so I will arrive in Santiago!

In a lovely stone village

I have had a wonderful three days´walking, the terrain is changing, and the really lucky part of it all is that though there have been some incredible downpours, both days they have arrived about 20 minutes after I got into the albergue. Today´s stop is a small town called El Acebo, a one street village with nothing but camino-related businesses -- an albergue, a couple of restaurants, a small shop or two. The town is quite beautiful, all stone buildings with slate roofs.

I´ve stayed in some new towns, trying to mix it up a little so it´s not all the same old same old. From León, I walked to Hospital de Orbigo, a long slog, but when we arrived there was a medieval "fair" going on. Tons of crowds, lots of food, some parades, sack races, tug of war -- who knew those school yard games came to us from so many centuries ago.

I´ve met a huge number of Americans, certainly more Americans in the last 5 days than I have met on all of my Caminos put together. I have been walking with a woman from Santa Rosa, who is good friends with a good friend of my good friend Dana -- how´s that for a small world? And this part of the Camino is one that brings back so many memories of my caminos with Dana, so it all seems to fit together.

The meseta has officially ended and we are starting to see some elevation gain. It makes things more interesting, and there are some amazing vistas. Today was a mix of clouds and sun, and we walked through a favorite village of mine, Rabanal (where there are two new albergues, making it a grand total of four in a town of about 50 people)and after one terribly cloudy stretch, the sun opened up just as we arrived at the Iron Cross, one of the high points of the Camino Francés.

Tomorrow, I will arrive in Ponferrada, a short 20 km away. There is a very impressive and well-renovated Templar castle, and from there the next day I will say goodbye to my friends and hike on myself. Then in a short 10-12 days I will arrive in Santiago. It´s all going so fast. It will hard to say goodbye to my friends, it is nice to have people around, but I hope one or two may come with me on my adventure.

In Santa Catarina

I am now in a town that I walked through in 2000, and again several years later. It is about 10 km outside Astorga. When we walked through it before, it was a totally abandoned town, and now there are restaurants, albergues, and bars. There are several First Communion luncheons-dinners here in the albergue, so who knows when we will get a bite to eat. We are at the bottom of the food chain here, I think.

Today we left the meseta. I walked with two other peregrinos until Astorga, where we enjoyed the Gaudi palace, the castillo, and a nice long café con leche in the plaza, just watching peregrinos arrive. We had about a 28 km walk to this small town, and here we sit waiting for the rain to move to the east and leave us alone. The albergue is quite nice, there are showers with hot water and no bunk beds -- so everyone has a "bottom bunk", which is quite nice.

I have met a nurse from Santa Rosa, which is pretty special, since danagrina lives in Santa Rosa. I´m hoping to hook those two up. The nurse, Paulette, told me that my toes look like they have gangrene, which gave me pause, but I am confident that´s not what they have,

Now we start the mountain walking. The day after tomorrow I will leave the Camino Francés and start on the camino del invierno, probably all alone but hopefully with someone else. This is a beautiful town and I am so happy and thankful to be here.

Rest day in León

I´m sort of getting used to this -- slog on for 37-40 kms on Day 1, and then take Day 2 to relax and enjoy! León is such a beautiful city, I´m always happy to spend time here. I had very little to accomplish today, other than wash a few pieces of clothing, so you could say I am enjoying the life of a lady of leisure.

This morning at breakfast, the room in the hotel was filled with eight English speaking pilgrims. A dad and two college aged kids from N. Carolina, two Canadian women (one of whom had walked her last step on the Camino and was limping terribly, the other who was off to buy a new backpack), an Austrian woman, a German young guy, and an American guy from Seattle. Yet another stark indication of how the traffic on the Camino Francés is increasing. We talked for a while, after I got up my courage to admit I had been eavesdropping and barged into the conversation. A couple of them are now considering the option of taking the Camino de Invierno with me, which would be nice. They too are tiring of the crowds and the rush for beds.


I spent a long time in the Cathedral during the late morning, as the strong sun burned through the stained glass window and made little jewel colored reflections all over the floor, it was amazing.

Then just wandering through the old town, I went to the covered market, where I went back to the same old fruit seller I remember from previous caminos. He started talking about how his business was declining, how people prefer to go get things wrapped in plastic in the supermarket, but how he wasn´t going to quit till he couldn´t make enough money to feed himself. He went on for some time about how it takes a professional to really know their fruits and vegetables -- the varieties, the regions, the soil, and in some cases, the growers themselves. He told me I would be very happy with every bite I took of the nectarines, apples, and cherries I bought from him. I left thinking he is a lucky man to be so proud of what he does every day from sun-up to sun-down.

So, I´m off for my last stroll in León, and am headed down to the parador, which is in the renaissance palace of San Marcos. It´s right at the tip of a long river walk, where in a while a large cross-section of León´s society will be linking arms and walking up and down along the tree-lined riverside promenade.

Weather so far has been fantastic, in fact for the last few days I´ve had to put socks on my hands till about 10:00 (WHY did I take out those little lambs wool gloves at the last minute?). But the forecast is calling for warming temperatures and rain. I´m hoping the rain keeps to its typical Castilla & León pattern of falling late in the afternoon after all peregrinos are inside washing clothes and napping.