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.

Day 22 Ponferrada – Villafranca Del Bierzo

Saturday 18 April 2009
Via FUENTES NUEVAS - CAMPONARAYA - CACABELOS - PIERROS
Approx 22km

Fed up and frustrated. That sums up today.

I slept terribly and got woken up too early. My clothes that had been hanging up all night to dry were still wet. My knee was killing me all day thanks to the downhill path yesterday, and my legs felt like led. I found the walk very hard too – constant up one hill and down another, only to see another one directly in front of me. I just couldn’t appreciate the beauty of the walk, and I had countless moment s of thinking I could have sat on the side of the dirt road and sobbed. But, at least I wasn’t walking on the highway today – thank heaven for small mercies.




When I finally reached Villafranca, I felt like I had been walking all day, when it was only 2.30pm. But at least I arrived before the heavens opened - again, small mercies. At any rate, today was the day to say a big welcome to the Galician region of Spain. I’m expecting the remainder of the journey to be soggy, if every guide book is to be believed!


I had an email from Stefi from Austria today, and she was only a day ahead of me. I would have loved to have caught up with her, as I really needed a friend today…..My problems with Johan reached a head this afternoon and I just didn’t know what to do about it. He was making me feel incredibly uncomfortable and I tried so hard on numerous occasions to tell him in a nice way to leave me alone, but he just kept appearing everywhere. I had thought that today I would have been rid of him, as he was planning on staying on at Ponferrada for an extra day. However. When I arrived in Villafranca and was trying to find the Albergue, I receive a text message from him, telling me that he was sitting in a café and I had just walked past him. I think this may have been the lowest point of my journey. I literally rounded a corner into a secluded cobblestoned street and sank to the ground in tears. It was horrible.

I decided that I would find the most out of the way Albergue and stay there, regardless of the cost, and I didn’t think he would have found this particular one as there were many others closer to town.

I arrived and checked in, choosing a bunk bed situated in the corner, because I just really wanted to hide myself from everyone. There was only one other backpack in the room, and I didn’t give it a second thought. I went into the kitchen and had a cup of coffee and wrote in my diary. All of a sudden, there was a huge clap of thunder and the electricity went out for a few seconds. When the lights came back on, I looked into the doorway, and there he was, dripping wet. It was honestly like a scene from a horror movie. I can’t even explain the shock of it. I hightailed it out of there and went to the first bar I could find, where I was the only girl in a room filled with men. It was starting to become clear that Spanish women do not frequent bars, especially on their own. I was getting all kinds of looks from everyone, especially the man behind the bar, who made it clear that he did not approve of me being there, and did not think I should be drinking the amount that I ended up drinking. Whatever.

So anyway, I didn’t know what to do, short of taking a day off and putting some distance between me and him, which is not something I wanted to do. I’d been having such a good run on the Camino, and I really didn’t want to let this man ruin it for me. I decided that in the morning I would just have to stand my ground and tell him as nicely as possible that the next week is mine, and it is very important to me that I do it alone. We were all doing the journey for different reason, and my reason were definitely not to meet middle aged Austrian men who have children older than me, and a wife at home. I needed to look after myself and if that meant being mean to him – so be it. But I still couldn’t believe that this was happening.

In other news, I hate my complexion! If I’m not sunburnt, I’m windburnt and my poor little face was constantly bright red with a white sunglasses tan. EVERYBODY comments on it – like I’m not aware!

Day 21 Foncebadon - Ponferrada

Friday 17 April 2009

Via CRUZ DE FERRO – MANJARIN- EL ACEBO – RIEGO DE AMBROS – MOLINASECA
27.5km

I had company again today, much to my annoyance.
I was trying to keep positive about the situation, but in all honesty it was starting to drive me mental. I tried to walk slowly, but he slowed down. When I sped up, he matched my speed. I had so many coffee stops in hopes he would continue on his way without me, but no luck. I was starting to get really annoyed, but then I thought that maybe this was a test of the Camino, to help me become a more patient person. And maybe he was ‘sent’ as a guide to assist me through a day that proved to be difficult and potentially dangerous. .. At any rate, it helped me to think like that – if everything happens for a reason, maybe the reason Johan was with me was to help me through these hurdles…

Anyway, aside from that issue, it was a great day. I started the day with an amazing breakfast of muesli and yoghurt, lovely, crusty toast with homemade jam, and strong black coffee, and then I set off in the beautiful white winter wonderland that that awaited me outside. The snow had covered everything in a stunning blanket and I had to pinch myself that I was actually seeing this with my own eyes, rather than in a postcard.

The first stop of the day was Cruz De Ferro, which is a huge tall cross, originally erected to help Pilgrims find their way across the mountains.

It is a tradition to bring a stone with you from home. You put all of your worries and bad things from your life into this stone, which you add to a huge cairn below the cross. I didn’t know about this tradition when I started my journey, so I didn’t have a stone from home. When Otmar discovered this a week or so previously, he spent days looking for the perfect stone for me, and found the perfect one – incredibly smooth and round except for a chip out of one side, which seemed fitting. And I liked the idea that it had come from the road of this journey – in the words of Ani Di Franco, “The world is my oyster, The road is my home”… So, I took great joy in placing “worry stone” (or “shit stone” as Otmar was calling it) on top of pile of thousands (millions?) of other stones. I think this moment was one of my most special on the Camino, and it is one of my favourite memories from the journey.

After leaving Cruz de Ferro, it was quite a slog through the snow capped mountains, and at one point it even started snowing. I felt so lucky to be walking through such a beautiful scene - it was almost like a dream – and it was made even better with the memory of the horrible Mesita still fresh on my mind. I wonder if that serves as a type of lesson – you always have to go through the bad to get to the good...

There was a very strenuous downhill section – 400m down in 4.5km, which was very hard on the knees and caused me a bit of pain (courtesy of an old netball injury) later on in the evening. Another Ani lyric sprung to my mind repeatedly on this day: “It’s all downhill from here baby, so naturally I can’t stay”. I think I can find lyrics suitable for every step of the journey, courtesy of her.

Johan and I stopped for lunch in Molinaseca, where we proceeded to drink our way through a bottle of wine, and as a result the last 8km to Ponferrada seemed very easy and incredibly hard, all at once. Everything seemed very funny for some reason… We finally arrived at 5.30 – quite late, due to being caught in a flash storm and having to seek shelter. At the Albergue I was pleased to see that they had separate sections for men and women, so I was able to escape Johan for the night. I was sharing a room with other girls, including Rebecca from New York, who would feature heavily in the rest of my journey. We went to the supermercado together and stoked up on supplies before sharing dinner together in the kitchen of the Albergue and having an early night to rest our weary bones.


I went to sleep hoping to continue on my solo journey in the morning, as Johan was thinking of spending an extra day in Ponferrada to do some sightseeing… To be continued!