October 18th, 2013

Yesterday we walked 15.9 kms from Trabadelo to the tiny village of Laguna de Castilla.  The sun had finally come out  after two days of rain, and gave us a beautiful day, blue skies and the air so clean and fresh, everything so green, a morning after a rain.  We hiked over a road along the valley floor of the mountains through little villages with storybook stone houses and shops built up against the mountain,  and with wrought iron balconies and window boxes full  of flowers and pots of flowers on either side of the doors.  On the other side of the road were meadows full of sheep, cows, or horses or gardens that sloped down to the foot of the opposite mountains.  Between the towns we walked through forests beside crystal clear streams, sometimes waterfalls.  It was a truely pleasant walk for the first seven hours (well,  okay, subtract about two hours from that for blog and lunch breaks) , until we got to the town of Hererrias at the foot of a  1,300 meter mountain, the gateway to the mountains of Galecia, the province  of Spain where we´ll be from now on until Santiago.  As usual, Tom was far ahead of me, and as I stood looking up at the steep rise of the mountain before me a British lady who was spending the night in Herrerias came up to me and asked me how far I was going today.  I told her we were headed for the top of the mountain to the town of O´Cebreiro.  "But that´s three hours away,"  she said.  Of course, three hours average pilgrim time is more like five hours my time, and it was already 3:30pm.  "Well, good luck, darlin´", she said, giving my arm an encouraging squeeze.  Then it got hard, and while up slugging up the  steep rocky mountain I had one of those moments where I thought that if this whole thing wasn´t my own idea I don´t know how I´d make it!  But I made it up to 1150 meters, and by that time it was well after 6pm so we stopped at Laguna de Castilla, a tiny village perched  on the side of the mountain, where for 6 euros we stayed at the albergue "La Escuela."  To get to our dorm room we had to walk up the steepest concrete ramp, I could barely do it with my walking sticks, so I don´t know how the porr little hospitaliera does it all day long - along with being the bartender, laundress, waitress, and taking care of her 15-month old son at the same time!  But there was no one else in the albergue so we had the 7-bed dorm room all to ourselves, including the bathroom!  It was a really cute, clean, comfy little place, and at one point we looked out the window of our room and saw a herd of cattle being led down the sloping village street, right under out window! (You can imagine the smell of manure that permeated the town!) There were actually two other people in the albergue, Sally and Jack, an older British couple who´ve been doing the Camino little sections at a time over the years.  They took a private room, though - some albergues are an albergue/hostel, which means they offer private rooms as well as dorm rooms.  So, along the Camino you can either stay at an albergue or a hostal (sometimes called a pensione) , a hostal being more like a hotel, with the room prices ranging from 30-60 euros, whereas the albergues range from 5-10 euros.  We ate with Sally and Jack in the pretty little dining room of the albergue where we all had the 10 euro pilgrim meal. I started with  a huge bowl of delicious octopus stew, followed by my usual favorite, steak and french fries with flan with whipped cream for dessert.  Tom had vegetable soup which he really  liked followed by ribs - good, but too much trouble to eat, as ribs can be.  He also had the flan for dessert. While the waitress served us her little boy toddled along after her!  Today we have to continue our steep climb up the mountain to O´Cebreiro, then about 540 meters back down, where we hope to land in the town of Triacastela  20 meters away.  So it should be a hard day.  And it´s supposed to rain again.  But, hey, we´ll all keep the sunshine in our hearts, right?  Everyone have a wonderful dunny day, whatever the weather!  Love, Patti 8)