Day 29: Rubadiso De Baixo - Monte Del Gozo

Saturday 25th April 2009

Via ARZUA – A CALLE – SALCEDA – EMPALME – SANTA IRENE – A RUA – PEDROUZO / ARCA – LAVACOLLA – SAN MARCOS

Approx 38km

What a day!

We had planned to walk 22km to Pedrouzo / Arca today, but somehow we miss the signs along the Camino (which went through an ‘Enchanted Forest’ today) and ended up walking, in a great deal of pain, an extra 16km to Monte Del Gozo. So very, very shattered!

We had spent the morning doing the usual thing – walked for a couple of hours, then stopping for coffee (ok, sidras). At one point, Rebecca had decided that she wanted a bit of alone time, and walked a bit slower than the rest of us. We arranged to meet that evening at the Albergue in Arca. The rest of us headed off, thinking that we were about 2 hours away from Arca, tops. After walking through the Enchanted Forest for 3 hours, we had a ‘Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore” kind of a moment.

We were lost. Shouldn’t we have been Arca some time ago? Should we keep walking?
We agreed that we should keep walking on to the next town. So we walked. And then we walked some more. And then we saw it….

..The sign welcoming us to Santiago. (Or rather, the outskirts of Santiago – so near yet so far)
We had walked 8km too far, and after a very long debate on the side of the road about whether we should head back to Arca for Rebecca, or keep walking the 8km to the next town, the consensus was to keep walking to Monte Del Gozo – Oh My God!

What on earth could have distracted us so much that we had missed an entire town? Could it have been the talking sign in the middle of the Enchanted Forest that welcomed us to Santiago? Megan’s terrible jokes? The witch of the ghosts of pilgrims past who had floated ahead of us the whole time? (Seriously, we followed a woman all day who was wearing a long black poncho and appeared to float, not even pausing to catch her breath on the top of the hills…).

Whilst pondering this, we stopped for a calming beer. The worst beer in the WORST bar – which was complete with porn magazines for our reading pleasure!

To keep our mind off the incredible pain we were all in (Oh the pain!), we played word games for the rest of the trek – which of course was in the pissing rain. It worked, and we were at Monte Del Gozo before we knew it – notable for being the first point on the Camino where you can see the towers of the Cathedral of Santiago… but we were all just too knackered at that point to muster up much enthusiasm!

Monte Del Gozo translates to Mount Joy, and is called so because of the stunning view over Santiago – which has made it a place of great joy and celebration for pilgrims over the centuries.
The Albergue at Monte Del Gozo was giant, with room to sleep over 2000 people. It was set out in dorm style – 8 beds per room, so we were lucky enough to have a room to ourselves for our last night of the Camino De Santiago. The grounds that the Albergue were on were also huge, and amazing. Behind the Albergue was an amphitheatre, which was actually being set up for use as we walked in for some kind of celebration that was to take place that evening – the whole place was a hive of activity, which all seemed fitting considering we were almost there, and were in celebration mode!

We were still really worried about Bec, as we had no way of letting her know that we had gotten lost and had walked straight past Arca. The whole group was feeling pretty terrible about losing her, so to take my mind off it, I decided to gather my things together to go to the bathrooms and have a shower. I was walking down the hallway when I heard a voice I recognized….
Of course it was her!

It turns out that Arca is incredibly hard to find considering it is located in the middle of the (enchanted) forest –so she missed it as well and came to the came conclusion that we did – keep walking! We were all absolutely stoked that the gang was complete again, and decided to celebrate by going out for dinner at a restaurant nearby. After a huge 4 course meal, with plenty of tasty wine, we were all completely flaked out – well, we did walk 38km!

Everyone fell asleep to the sound of me singing songs about Australia – what a sweet sound for them all to have sweet dreams!!

…..Tomorrow – Santiago!!

Day 28: Palas De Rei - Rubadiso De Baixo

Friday 24 April 2009

Via SAN XULAN – PONTE CAMPANA – CASANOVA – LEBOREIRO – FURELOS – MELIDE – BEONTE – CASTANEDA

Approx 27km

Urgh, had a terrible, terrible night’s sleep. The room was so hot, and over looked a main road with lots of trucks driving past. Of course there was also the obligatory snoring, but nothing worse than normal (mental note to self – do NOT marry a man who snores).


Unfortunately I was awoken at 4am by an old English man who was shouting at Jon to wake up IMMEDIATELY. Apparently Jon’s snoring was keeping ‘everyone’ awake and he ‘should leave the room’. I couldn’t believe the nerve of him, although this was the same man who had proudly told us earlier that he had let down the tires on a car that had been transporting some fellow pilgrim’s backpacks into the next town. Not exactly in line with the spirit of the Camino. I had to get out of bed to tell Jon that he didn’t wake me up and he wasn’t to leave the room till morning. However, leave he did, and I went back to sleep – only to be awoken by loud snoring. Upon closer investigation, guess who it was? You got it, Mr. Nasty Camino himself. He’ll get his in this life, I’m convinced of it.

Anyway, because of that incident, we were all tired in the morning, and as a result, it was a bit of a long day. We broke it up by stopping for coffee and cake in the morning, and doing some grocery shopping in Melide, where we also had lunch. In the afternoon we got caught in a brief shower, which left us all wet and frustrated!





My ‘should be’ highlight of the day was our stop in Casanova. I had been looking forward to seeing Casanova for days, and I was so excited that Megan and I made up a song about going to Casanova (to the tune of ‘Say My Name” by Destiny’s Child… of all tunes to choose from!). But when we got to the town, we were past it before we realised we had just walked through it. Talk about small Spanish towns! It left me wondering if it was indeed the home of the infamous Casanova (I’m guessing not, and I’m sure some people reading this will be shaking their heads at my lack of geographical knowledge...Don't be too shocked - this is the girl who was in Amsterdam when she decided that she should have gone to Holland instead.)




We stayed in Ribadiso, which was a converted Pilgrims Hospital that was renovated and converted into a pilgrim refuge in 1993. This Albergue was the last of the historical establishments on the Camino – which means we had to be close to Santiago! The Albergue was on the river, with a beautiful medieval bridge stretching across it. Being a huge lover of all things bridges, I was pretty pleased by this.



We had planned to have a’ family dinner’ in the Albergue, as my guide book (The Camino Frances Pilgrim Guides to Spain, by the Confraternity of Saint James) had indicated that there was a ‘large dining room and kitchen’ – but no grocery stores in town, so suggested we buy any food in Melide, which as mentioned earlier, we had. The meals we had planned to cook involved many jars and cans and bottles of ingredients, so we had divided the weight up between everyone’s backpacks and carried the the 12km from Melide in preparation for our amazing meal…..

…Well, as Murphy would have it, nothing went to plan! The kitchen and dining room were amazing. They were stone, cave like rooms, very dimly lit, and made me feel like I was living in the medieval times. Very haunting and great atmosphere….but when we entered the (amazing) kitchen, we were horrified to discover that the only thing in there was 1 pot....

Yes, 1 pot. No dishes, no cutlery... nothing! Megan went to the local restaurant to beg some plates, forks etc (and was kindly told that once their kitchen closed we were welcome to use anything in there….but that was too long a wait for us hungry pilgrims!). Somehow, we managed to cook an amazing meal. I was in charge of the soup (cooking my Camino specialty of sausage and bean soup, which I had treated many hungry pilgrims to over the past few weeks), and Megan made shrimp scampi. We had bread, salad and wine and it was fabulous. We managed to get around our lack of dishes problem by drinking our soup out of the bottles that our ingredients had come in – we felt very ingenious for that idea! It was a great night once we had figured dinner out – although I felt terrible for one of our fellow pilgrims, a young guy on his own who was cycling the Camino – he had to wait for such a long time until he could use the one pot in the kitchen to heat his dinner up… Opps!


To update: the black dog (who we christened Sirius after the Harry Potter character) was still following us today. I can’t believe how far he has travelled.

Day 27: Portomarin – Palas De Rei

Thursday 23 April 2009
Via GONZAR – CASTROMAIOR – HOSPITAL DE LA CRUZ – VENTAS DE NARON – LIGONDE – EIREXE – PORTOS / LESTEDO

Approx 25km

A really lovely day today. The weather was perfect – nice and warm with a cool breeze coming along every time it seemed to get too hot. We walked through stunning forest paths, and apart from lots of steep inclines and descents (again), it was a really nice walk.

I set off with the gang again – Megan and Jeff, Jon and Rebecca, and as usual we all spent time talking together. I really enjoyed this part of my journey – walking with this group of special people. Today I spent about an hour walking and talking with Megan, and then I dropped back and hung out with Jon – never boring! Today’s topics ranged from conspiracy theories (I’d just seen Zeitgeist in Ireland), to trying to remember lyrics from old school rap songs…. Always such a wide variety of topics!

We stopped about 8km in at Gonzar for a cup of coffee and a sit down to rest from the heat before heading off again. We later stopped for a lunch of bocadillas and sidras in Ligonde and when we left, we discovered we had gained another member to our posse… A gorgeous black dog who trotted along with us for ages. We heard later that the same dog had followed various pilgrims all the way from the very beginning in St Jean Pied De Paul. I couldn’t believe it! He followed us all the way to our Albergue, and spent the evening sitting outside the front door waiting for us, crazy!

Jeff’s boots were in the process of falling apart over the past few days, poor buggar. His feet are massive – size 14, so of course he couldn’t get a new pair anywhere, so all he could do way try and duct tape them and hope for the best! He spent many ‘happy’ ours the night before trying to do a DIY repair…very frustrating for him.

As of today, I was officially less than 100km away from Santiago!
The rules regarding the pilgrimage to Santiago and receiving your Compestela (certificate stating that you have completed the Camino De Santiago) state that you must walk at least 100km – so as a result, the number of pilgrims from this point almost tripled, and I was starting to get really annoyed at the number of what we kindly named ‘day trippers’ – who were mainly older people wearing very touristy type clothes (cotton pedal pushers, sneakers etc), carrying these incredibly small backpacks… whilst we were weathered, dirty, smelly etc..! At this point I had walked well over 600km, with a backpack that weighs approx 10kg, and at the end of the day, I get exactly the same Compestela that they do! Not a very nice frame of mind from a fellow pilgrim, and I should have been (and was…) pleased that these people were giving it a red hot go, but every time I passed them, I got a bit madder!

We stayed with our Spanish student friends once again tonight, and it was becoming clear that this is the sort of school trip I should have had! They were running wild with no rules enforced on them at all! We had walked past some of them during the day, and I almost toppled over when I looked at one of the girls and noticed that she had INCREDIBLE amounts of make up on – blusher you could see from the moon! Made me feel even dirtier and smellier and older!! Maybe no one told her the point of the journey…?

Day 26: Sarria – Portomarin

Wednesday 22 April 2009
Via BARBADELO – MORGADE – FERREIROS – MIRALLOS – MOUTRAS

Approx 24km

Hot hot hot!

I think today’s leg must have been even hotter than yesterday. The gang was all together again today, and we had a lovely, much needed late start. The first of us stirred at about 8am, and once we all woke up, we realised that the clothes that we had hung out to dry the night before were still very wet and needed to be put in the dryer! So, off we headed to have a nice leisurely breakfast at the café next door. By the time the clothes were dry and we headed off, it was about 10am. I felt so guilty at starting the day so late!

It was a nice day though, and I felt so much better than I did yesterday. The scenery was beautiful and reminded me of Ireland – so lush and green.

At one point we were walking along a lovely big field, and I saw a horse. I decided to take a photo of the horse, and was doing so when Jeff came up to me laughing and made some reference to me being a dirty girl. I had no idea what he was talking about until I looked a bit closer and realized that this horse was a bit of a happy boy.... With an enormous erection. Enormous. He should be very proud of himself! Being as pure and virginal as I am (cough cough), I was incredibly shocked by what I saw, and dropped my camera on the ground. And broke it. So close to Santiago. Absolutely devastated. Stupid, well hung horse.

I was really upset about my broken camera, and having to use crappy disposable camera for the rest of the journey, but I was trying to be ‘Camino’ about the loss. Material possessions aren’t important; this will force me to look at the scenery in a way that will make me appreciate it and remember it, blah blah blah….but really, it was a massive pain in the arse and I was pretty upset about my loss! At least it happed while I was walking with a group who are all taking pictures and can send me their photos. Not the end of the world, but so ANNOYING!

Besides the camera, it was a nice day. We stopped for lunch in a lovely village and sought out some shelter to get out of the sun.

As we were leaving the town (called Morgade), there was an old stone hermitage, which was a place where pilgrims traditionally leave messages for their fellow pilgrims. We went inside to have a look and it was amazing – filled with photos of people and notes in all languages. It was a very touching and intense experience.

It was another long, hard slog in the afternoon with the heat getting to us all, and by the time we arrived in Portomarin, we were all sunburnt, sweaty and sore. We stayed in a Municipal Refugio, which was pretty full, and there were many familiar and friendly faces around town – including the school kids from the day before.

Portomarin was a lovely town, which had been rebuilt after the old town had been ‘drowned’ by the waters of the reservoir. Once we had our showers and settled into the Albergue, we decided to take advantage of the lovely warm weather and headed out to a bar where we sat outside and enjoyed the warm breeze and a few well deserved beers with some of our other friends we had seen and met along the way. We ate out in one the bars a little bit later on, and it was a very social evening. Lovely!

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In an aside, a few days before when I was still walking alone, it was very early in the morning, and I came across a little old man who only had one big tooth in his mouth. I said ‘Hola’ to him and went to keep walking when he started chattering away to me. I told him that I spoke only English and couldn’t understand him. He stopped talking and contemplated this for a while, nodded, took my arm and started walking with me, very slowly, arm in arm, chattering away. This continued for about 10mins, with me trying to tell him that I couldn’t understand him, and him not really caring! I finally had to take off and leave him standing there after it became very clear that he was happy to chatter and walk with me all day!

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I had also recently discovered that I was the Urban Legend of the Camino de Santiago!When I was walking with Austrian stalker Johan, he was telling me a story he had heard from a man he had been walking with previously. This story was about a prayer session that the man had attended while he was staying in Granon. In this prayer session, a girl’s jacket had caught on fire and the news was fairly grim. Apparently she was burnt and it was horrible to witness…. The funniest part of this story is that I had seen the man Johan had been walking with, and he was not in that prayer session… So unless it happened to another girl – that was my story! A few other people have also mentioned to me that they had heard a story about a girl who had caught on fire – it’s like Chinese Whispers. We were speculating about this and decided that it was because we don’t really have access to news of the ‘outside’ world, so we pilgrims were running on ‘news of the Camino’ – and with so many people completing the journey, word gets around!

Day 25: Triacastela – Sarria

Tuesday 21 April 2009
Via SAN CRISTOBO – SAMOS – RIO ORIBIO – FONTAN – SAVIL A VEIGA – PERROS

Approx 25km

What a horrific struggle of a day.

I had been up all night with a belly ache and a bad case of the nasty stuff, thanks to eating some dodgy chorizo that had spent waaaay too long in my backpack the day before. All I wanted was to stay in bed all day and not do anything, so it was very hard to get going. Thank God we had decided to walk as a group today – Rebecca, Jon, Jeff and Megan, which was great for motivation. I couldn’t have asked for more supportive people! If I had have been alone I think I might have sat on the side of the road and cried!

It was a really hard 10km slog to Samos, which is famous for its enormous Benedictine Monastery. We had a choice of two routes this morning, and we chose this particular route specifically for the Monastery – but after a 3 hour trek to get there we were all dying for a drink. We sat down in the sunshine out the front of a little bar and had cups of tea….and completely forgot to visit the Monastery!

Somewhere along the way today we experienced a lovely, childish moment which momentarily took my mind off feeling sick. We were walking through a field when we came across a bridge with a rushing stream beneath it. Jon suggested a game of ‘Pooh Sticks’ (named so after the Winnie the Pooh story books). We all found a stick and threw it into the river on one side of the bridge and the raced to the other side to see whose stick would be the first to appear under the bridge. It’s great that the simplest things in life can so often be the best. In case you’re wondering, Jeff won, I was a close second!

From Samos, it was a super hard 15km up and down, up and down – it almost killed me! I couldn’t have been happier to see Sarria – I think I almost cried tears of joy! We stayed in a great Albergue with fantastic facilities – it was someone’s home, and there was huge with two big dorm rooms at the front of the massive house, big kitchen with all the fittings and a lovely back yard with a dining room and its own prayer room complete with huge wood fire. On top of the dining room and prayer room was an area decked out with sun lounges and clothes line. It was luxury for us humble pilgrims!

I immediately jumped into the shower and went to bed for 3 hours – and I would have happily stayed there all night. I have never been as sore as I was on this day - feet, legs, back…Oh the pain! It felt like someone had put bricks in my backpack. I was so lucky that my wonderful friends took such good care of me. I lagged behind for most of the day, but around every corner, someone was hanging back waiting for me to make sure I was ok.

When we got the Albergue, we all threw our washing in and Jon and Rebecca took care of it. Megan cooked an amazing feast for our dinner – pork, Spanish tortilla and salad. It was so good, especially considering I hadn’t eaten all day! It had been a warm day – about 27 degrees, so I think I also had a touch of heat stroke and hadn’t had enough water during the day. What a tragic case I was!

After dinner, the owner of the home invited us into the prayer room, holding a big bottle of Liquor De Herbos in his hand, so we all sat down around the fire for a little while drinking the good stuff before heading to bed. We were sharing the Albergue with a large group of teenagers – a school group who were completing this final leg of the Camino. We would see them along the rest of the way to Santiago, which was lots of fun. What a great school experience for them – although one which they probably didn’t appreciate at the time!

Day 24 O Cebreiro – Tricastela

Monday 20 April 2009
Via LINARES - HOSPITAL DE LA CONDESA - ALTO DE POIO - FONFRIA - BIDUEDO
Approx 20.5km

An amazing start to the day, with spectacular views over the early morning O Cebreiro – mists and clouds were below us – actually below us! Amazing!

I spent the day walking with Rebecca, who is great company, and is good for some educated conversation. We had a quick breakfast before heading off to tackle another bloody mountain!

It was worth it to get to the top and have some more incredible views. The walk today was only 20km, but it seemed never-ending! We got to Triacastela at about 2pm.

On our way there we went through so many small hilltop villages with some interesting experiences – we were accosted by a little old lady who had fresh crepes and handed us one each before holding her hand out for a ‘donativo’, which I thought was incredibly cheeky, especially considering I don’t have a sweet tooth and didn’t even want one! And here was me thinking she was so sweet to offer me a tasty crepe when it was all about the money (important lesson Jess - no one does something for nothing!).

A little bit later on when we were oh so close to Triacastela, we got caught behind a man herding cows down a muddy lane for a very long time! One of my fellow Pilgrims – a Spanish man named Emilio, who I would spend time with later, as in front of us and decided that he was a cowboy and was trying to herd the cows – very proud of himself and very funny!

In an aside, the first I saw of Emilio was the day before when Rebecca and I were having a fortifying beer before tackling the mountain ahead of us – he pointed at us and laughing the whole way, proceeded to dance up the hill- Forever known as the Dancing Man. I guess the story is even funnier if I described Emilio – a big man in a wooly jumper who paid for pack to be transported to the next town, because – in his own words (whilst rubbing his substantial belly) – “I have enough weight to carry”. Too funny!

Rebecca and I arrived at the Albergue and were having a rest when I heard a very familiar voice – and who should walk in but Jon from England! I was so very happy to see him, and he was in a bad way and needed a friend – fate works in funny ways. The three of us (Rebecca, Jon and I) met up with Megan and Jeff and we all went to a Pilgrims Mass, which was really special. The Mass was given in Spanish, but as Megan was fluent, she translated. The priest was incredibly kind and gave us good sentiment about the Camino – it is not a race, it’s not about who gets to Santiago first – it’s a time to be reflective. It was such a special moment, and one which I hope to remember for the rest of my life. Very special. After we had dinner at our respective Albergues, Megan and Jeff came to our Albergue and we sat up until WAY too late and drank way too much wine.

I was thinking about the prayer session later and thought about how on the ball the message way – I had been guilty of trying to walk too fast to prove myself to people and make it a race. I suppose its human nature to have that bit of a competitive streak and feel a bit feeble when you lose people because they are fitter or faster than you, but it’s not about being the fastest to Santiago – otherwise, what’s the point? You’re not undertaking your journey, you’re undertaking some else’s journey – and no one undertakes the journey for any reasons apart from their own. And in retrospect, I feel sorry for those who think it’s a race and get caught up in that, because they miss the beauty and joy.

Day 23 Villafranca Del Bierzo – O Cebreiro

Sunday 19 April 2009
Via TRABADELP - PERUSE - LA PORTELA - AMBASMESTAS - VEGA DE VALCARCE - RUITELAN - HERRERIAS & HOSPITAL INGLES - LA FABA - LAGUNA DE CASTILNALA
Approx 31km

Stunning, stunning, beautiful, amazing day.

It certainly picked up after the horrors of yesterday. I managed to wake up, eat breakfast and make a sneaky escape from Johan which was a great start to the day! The morning was fabulous, as I walked through tiny ‘abandoned’ looking mountain villages – it was so still and quite. Very surreal.

I spent most of the day alone which was really nice as the weather was perfect. I wandered along and soaked up the sunshine, stopped for a few coffees and was just generally ‘at one’. I had a great hour or so sitting in the sun next to s stream in a farmers paddock, eating my lunch and feeling blissful.

The day picked up from there – literally! Today was the steepest incline on the entire Camino. I went from 65m – 1300 m above sea level in 8km.

Just as I was about to tackle the giant, I ran into Rebecca from New York, who fast became my new favourite person! She’s the same age as me, and she loves Ani Di Franco – yay! The hill seemed easier to climb as we chatted about New York and how fantastic Ani is – oh, and the 3 cevasa (beer) stops didn’t hurt things!

I was only going to travel as far as La Faba, but the extra 4.5km uphill to O Cebreiro seemed ok in her company, and I was very glad I kept going. O Cebreiro was stunning. It is an old village that looks like it is built out of stone. It had incredibly Celtic influences, which reminded me of Ireland.
The Albergue was massive and almost full – I couldn’t believe how many people were there, when the earlier stages of the journey were very quiet! At about 7pm the sun was still out and shining on us, and Rebecca and I went out for dinner with some other great people who, again, will feature heavily in the coming days: Pepe from Spain; and Jeff and Megan from San Diego. We were all starving and excited to eat some good food. We ended up having an extra guest with us at dinner –Hans from Germany. I had met him in a bar a couple of days before and he had made an impression on me with his smiley disposition. He was sitting alone in the restaurant, and I invited him to join us, which he was very happy about. He was telling us that he had made this journey before with this wife, who had passed away recently. He remembered her being very happy on the Camino and was doing it again in her honour. What a special man.

The group dynamic over dinner was great and everyone was getting on and chatting like old friends for hours. The food was amazing – we all started with Garlic Soup, which is a regional specialty and incredibly tasty. The main meal was good too, and a few wines went down very nicely. I was glad for the good company after my adventures with Johann over the previous days. Megan and Jeff were a fabulous couple, very smart (both pre law) and well traveled with heaps of entertaining stories.

After dinner we went out for a beer, and were about halfway though our drinks with the landlady told us that if we were staying at the Albergue, its doors lock at at 10pm. It was 10.15pm at that stage! We raced up the hill to find out that we had indeed been locked out! Thanks goodness for the man sitting alone in the kitchen who responded to our frantic knocks at the window who let us in – phew!

And thus, the sun set on another day on the Camino De Santiago.