October 18th, 2013

Yesterday we made it to the top of the mountain and crossed over into Galicia- it´s amazing how much easier it is to scale a mountain in the morning than in the late afternoon! On the way up we saw another cloud island, only this time there was another patch of clouds floating above the"island", with sun rays shining down through the clouds, making for an especially lovely, etherial scene.  We´d read in the guide book that as soon as you enter Galicia you should expect an immediate change in the weather, and I swear, as soon as we stepped over the marker from Castilla to Galicia, we stepped from mild weather into cold blowing wind - just like that!  (that guide book wasn´t joking!)  Galicia is culturally distinct from the rest of Spain, as is Navarra, the first area we passed through on the Camino.  But somehow Galicia shares a cultural heritage with the Celitic countries (the name Galicia comes from  the word Gaelic) and the music we´ve been hearing in the bars and tiendas we´ve passed today has sounded like Irish flute or bagpipe or fiddle music, as opposed to what we´ve been hearing in those places up unitl now - American rock music!  The countryside, the valleys below us and the mountains above us are so green (probably from the rain - it normally rains 60% of the time in Galicia) that I wonder if the region also bears a physical resemblance to the Emerald Isle,  though I don´t know if Ireland has such high mountains as Galicia.  I´ve been hoping to run into an Irish pilgrim so that I could ask them if Galicia reminded them of their home.  Anyway, after we reached the mountain top the road continued to dip and climb, sometimes gently, sometimes steeply, sometimes really steeply, but strenously enough that by lunchtime we were shocked to discover that in the three and a half hours we´d been walking we´d only covered 7 kms!  For lunch we  stopped in the town of Hospital de la Condesa at a pretty, rustic little  restaurant, rather dark inside, all stone and wood timbers, but warm and cozy and filled with pilgrims eating or just stopping for a beer break.  There was a table full of friendly, beer-drinking  Germans who were crunched for time to get to Santiago but, as one of them told us,  "We walk fast and we drink fast!" We also chatted for a moment with a young Slovenian pilgrim who stopped for a beer to kill the pain of his shin splints. We stuck to lunch, though, and  decided to veer from our standard yacht-sized ham and cheese sandwiches and ordered plates of penne pasta covered in tomatoes and beef ribs, so tender the meat fell off the bones.  Was it good?  Oh, you betcha!  Then when tom paid the waitress whe absolutely refused a tip!  Which begs the question: are the Galicians just more for stianding their ground  than their fellow countrymen and have we been mortally offending all the Spanish servers we´ve been forcing tips on up until now?  After lunch the road was up and down more steep hills and the sky, which had spared us all morning, began to look threatening, so we decided to stop after another 7 kms in the town of Fonfria.  We reached the albergue "A Reboleira" just as the rain drops started, and within a few minutes those drops had turned to a downpour!  This albergue looked like a stone mountain lodge, all light wood panelling inside, the wall across from the cozy sitting room lined with windows with a view of the mountains.  It also had a  bar with Celtic music playing - a nice, warm place to be on a cold rainy night in the mountains!  By the early evening the albergue was full of pilgrims, so I think the rain must have led many of them there.  Anyway, the dorm beds cost 8 euros per person, but there was a hostal part, too, and we decided to take another Camino Whatever and spring 26  euros for a double room. But we did take a peek at the dorm area - it was really nice, big, comfy-looking bunk beds in a spacious room. But anyway,  once again we had a bathroom all to ourselves, and, added luxury,  the shower stall  had something that I´ve taken for granted all my life but never will again:  a soap dish.  You know, for setting the soap on so you don´t have to either hold it in your hand or set it on the floor while you shower. Dinner was served at a  stone building down the road from the albergue, but since it was pouring ourside a taxi made several trips to take us all to the restaurant , then back again after dinner!  Dinner was a 10-euro pilgrim meal served at a long community table, where we ate family-style.  The first course was a tasty vegetable-spinach soup, the second course was a lamb (or maybe it was beef, none of us could agree!) stew over rice, also delicious, and for dessert a pastry called a Santiago cake, a coconut and almond torte sprinkled with powdered sugar.  It was a meal of good food, good conversation, and, as always, good pilgrim fellowship!  Later I laid in bed listening to the wind and rain - it sounded like a hurricane outrside, and I thught that must be why all the buioldings in these parts are made of stone and study wood - to keep them fromblowing down! I also thought about having to walk through rivers of mud the following day, and about the steep descent we have in store , maybe over wet rocks. I was feeling kind of scared, in fact, and had a hard time falling asleep.  But this morning, after sharing breakfast with our cheerful fellow pilgrims who encouraged me and told me I´d be fine on the downward slope, I guess I now feel like I can probably hack it,   mud, rain, bad rocks, and all. Tiem to go now, everyone have a wonderful day!  Love, Patti