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.