Camino 2017 – the sequel

We had a long day today – 30km – and are now less than 10km from Santiago.

To ensure success, we have stayed at many of the same albergues as last year (often even in the same bunk!) and, as appropriate, have shipped Rosemary’s bag.  Much of my journey has been a lovely repeat of one of the most joyous experiences of my life.  Today’s post may be a repeat of last year’s at this time, but I think it still properly sums up the journey, with perhaps an update or two;

I hope I have retained my openness to new experiences and people;

I hope I have and will continue to be less judgemental and more accepting;

I hope I have become more generous;

I hope I am more willing to laugh at life’s small adversities and separate them from things that really matter;

I hope I can be the type of friend/cousin/sister/niece/mother/ wife that you all deserve;

I hope these lessons will stay with me forever.

I know that Rosemary and I will walk together into Santiago tomorrow;

I know that I have been surrounded by love and support since the day I was born;

I know I will be even happier to see Sophie Monday evening than she will be to see me;

I know Jamie and Katie (who turns 30 today!) continue to make me proud every day;

I know Tom’s love and support for me venturing out on the Camino 2 years in a row is reflective of the love, respect and support we have now shared for over 40 years;

I know I have never taken a single step alone.

Thank you all so much for being a part of my life.

No – I did not take the day off!!!!  We actually had a very long trek today and mostly in the rain (when it wasn’t raining it was pouring – with a few intermittent moments of sunshine)  and most of the way through gently rolling eucalyptus forests – inhale deeply and smell the beauty.

We strolled most of today with Peter from Calgary and Andy (Methodist preacher and ex-SAS officer and as it turns out, originally orthodox-Jew!!!!) – both peaceful and non-stop fascinating chatter.   The 4 of us are currently in the same albergue (only 42km from Santiago) and are also sharing a room with Laura and Yves from northern Ontario. We are currently enjoying a great theological discussion/game of First Testament Trivial Pusuit.  Really enjoying the challenge and fellowship!

Today we continued through the lovely rolling countryside of Galicia. Yet again the morning was crisp with fog and cloud settled in the valleys, creating the illusion of islands in the sea where stands of trees pierce the clouds. As the day continued, it warmed up – a lot!!!

As today’s planned walk was quite short at only about 20km, I convinced Rosemary and Peter to do the detour walk to Vilar de Donas. This small church is the ancient seat of the Knights of Santiago. As last year, Jesus (who is now 89 years old) came over from his home next door and unlocked the church to give us the same passionate and detailed explanation of everything (again totally in Spanish so I probably only got about 10% of what he was telling me).  The 3 of us walked the 2.5km rolling trail to get there in about 20 minutes – and every step of the way I remembered the journey last year when I was accompanied by the truly courageous and sadly crippled young pilgrim whose walking poles were medical assists.  I could recall our conversation almost perfectly as well as his determination and pure joy with life.  As near as I can figure, it took the 2 of us at least 3 times as long to traverse the route as it took us today – and that brave young man was continuing to Santiago.  I wonder what has become of him – I am pretty sure his fearlessness and determination have served him well even as I’m certain his body continued to forsake him.

We are closing in on Santiago and are now only 65km away.

So yes, I do often think very fondly of my Mom while strolling along (actually I think of her often and fondly all the time) but it’s my other “mom”‘I’m referring to…..

Rosemary and I came upon a pair of brothers-in-law just at the 100km left to Santiago mileage marker (woohoo – closing in!) and offered to take their picture together.  Now bear in mind that they were looking directly into the sun, but the one fellow asked Rosemary if she and I were mother and daughter doing the walk – and you can guess given I’m telling the story which one he thought was the mom and which one the daughter!  Hilarious!!!!!! And given all he could see looking directly into the sun was 2 silhouettes I have no idea why he would have made the comment – haha, but he did and I will forever rag Rosemary about it!

Anyways, following the fortunate/unfortunate introduction it ended up that Rosemary walked with the one brother (still not sure why she didn’t push him off a cliff) and I walked with the other for about an hour. John (my brother) and I had a great discussion.  He is retired from MetLife and now works in Ohio with a Roman Catholic organization whose mandate is to evangelize Catholicism.  We had a fascinating discussion about this mission, the Catholic Church and spirituality vs religion.  I really enjoyed our talk!  I need to somehow find Pastor Andy the Methodist minister ex of the SAS and from Nottingham England as the Synod has just assigned him the task of evangelizing the Methodist church in his parish. I think they could have a great conversation.

Today’s walk was longer at 26km. Much of the day I was fussing about that rotten rock chute from last year. They’ve changed the trail!!!!!! There’s still a very steep downhill but it’s now paved!!!!  Rosemary and I did walk a half km or so back at the base so she could see the old trail – it was there and still as scary.

Yet again we are at the same albergue I stayed at last year and it is still lovely.  We seem to have picked up Peter from Calgary who is now booking forward with us.

So Rosemary and I are celebrating our 40th anniversary today!!! We first met each other May 2, 1977 when our dorm rooms in Village 1 at  U of W were next door.  A near lifetime of memories – university, CA exams, weddings, cottages and much travel together over the years. I know it is hard to imagine, but we were even hotter then (haha).

Today’s walk was again lovely – you must get tired of hearing this even though I don’t get tired of saying it. Gently rolling hills through lovely farmland, with the sun shining and a warm temperature.  As we left our albergue this morning the hostess came running after us to hand us a bag of homemade biscotti for the road – perfect!!!!!

Well, the weather continued to be wicked last night – quite the flurry with the snow blowing sideways.  Given the absence of any good (or even decent) restaurants in O’Cebreiro we opted to just stay at our little Casa Rural and eat there – their food was a little sketchy but still much better than going out.

The walk today was again glorious, although the amount of snow we had was quite the surprise.  We were both dressed warmly enough but neither of us had any desire to take our gloves off until we had reached our endpoint.

We are now in the province of Galicia, which is apparently one of the poorest in Spain. It seems in large respect that life here is little unchanged over the years. We travel from wee village to wee village, each  comprised of a church and a handful of farm homes with the barn attached to the homes.  It seems many farmers have around 30 head of cattle and 2 herding dogs (the dogs are huge – and really cute) and they all seem to lead them from place to place right along “Main Street” (aka the Camino).  You do need to watch your step and it can get pretty slippery when wet. All the villages smell like cow dung, but somehow with the simple way of life  and each village nestled into its surrounds, that seems okay.

Sometime today, if all goes according to plan, 259 Indian Valley Trail will no longer belong to Tom & me.  Much of today was spent reliving many happy moments from our home of 22+ years – family Christmases (my favourite time of year), tripping over countless pairs of shoes in the front hall with either Jamie or Katie having a gang over (usually someone’s hockey team), family cats Tiger and Syd, wonderful next-door neighbours….a house that was always a home.

259 Indian Valley Trail

We have successfully completed what is considered the most physically demanding day of the Camino.  We commenced in Villafranca 28.9km ago and have now arrived in the Galician mountain village of O’Cebreiro. The 28.9 isn’t the full story as you also ascend 900m and that apparently translates to an effective overall distance of 33.4km.

To add to the distance we had some fascinating weather. We started in a steady rain that then became quite a hard rain that then morphed to hail, followed by some brief sunshine, cloudy heavy mist, very loud and close thunder, more hail and finally snow.  Looking out the door right now it is absolutely dumping down (I would be quite excited if I was at Jackson Hole! – already a few cm accumulating on the ground).

Our morning had a perfect Camino start. One of the pilgrims staying at our lovely albergue has a birthday today.  As I was thanking our hostess (Maria’s mom) on the way out this morning, I mentioned the birthday – the result was her husband playing one very beautiful song on the guitar before we all departed.

We’re both physically tired and quite mellow. We’re staying in a Casa Rural that seems to be  quite a pleasant dump and as there seem to be no rooms available in town at all, it is just fine.

We enjoyed a lovely – and much warmer – 26km through the rolling hills, gentle farmland and well maintained villages of the beautiful Bierzo micro-climate area (this means lots of vineyards and the resultant quite lovely local vino tinto).  The day seemed to just float by with few words spoken and each of us lost in our own reverie.

Upon arrival at our end point for the day – Villafranca del Bierzo – we made our way to the same lovely albergue I stayed at last year.  It is actually a converted townhouse owned for generations by the host family and it is beautiful. Rosemary and I are sharing the same private alcove as Kylie and I shared last year – I will still be climbing to the upper bunk and only a curtain separates us from the other larger room but there is still a coziness and a good feeling of privacy.  The daughter of the house, Maria, claims to recognise me from last year and both she and the rest of her family are as welcoming as before. There is a great new addition to the abode this year – Africa the 11-month old Portuguese Water Dog. She’s just had a haircut so looks a little bald but is still adorable and very loving (I miss Sophie!!!).  Maria has just taken Africa out for a walk and put a full quilted coat on her first because of the haircut and the outside temperature – I will confess I chuckled a bit.

Tomorrow is a big day for both distance and elevation and it looks like we are finally about to have our comeuppance and have some rain – rats!

Our albergue.

Africa (having her coat put on) and Maria.

Wow – what a glorious 24 hours!!!!

Let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start… yeah, there was a bit of The Sound of Music going on today)…

I know I reported on the very basic nature of our albergue last night. Basic can often bring wonder though!  As last year (yep, 2 years in a row at the same place), everyone at the albergue joined together for a communal supper – and what a meal it was – homemade hummus on crusty bread, a fantastic salad and an amazing vegetarian paella. At our table we had 2 Italians, 1 German, the pair of us and 2 Spaniards –  and the common language of the Camino worked perfectly in translation.  The one Spanish fellow, Julio, is travelling with his dog, Cippi (I think I posted a picture of Rosemary on the trail with Cippi coming up behind yesterday).  Cippi is super well behaved but nonetheless, all dogs (and their owners) are relegated to the (I think unheated) trailers out back – and it was cold last night!!!

As the evening wore on, all the younger folk gathered together and made use of the resident guitars and bongo-type drum and had a roaring sing-along.  Rosemary and I retired around 9:00 to our mattresses on the floor in the loft and it was so great to lie there and listen to them all have so much fun (they were a little foggy this morning though).

We got off on our start this morning around 7:30.  Cold can hardly begin to describe the weather.  It was probably around -5c (20f) and the wind was howling…and of course we were headed up over a mountain.  Our knapsacks were light because we had most of our clothes on us.  We both have very decent hiking gloves but it was so bad we had a spare pair of woollen hiking socks over top of them!!!

Our first 2km this morning was pretty much straight up to the Cruz de Ferro – a simple iron cross approximately 5,000ft above sea level. Many pilgrims have carried a stone from home or some other important to them spot to place at the foot of the cross. In leaving the stone, one metaphorically leaves a burden and/ or a token of love or celebration as we journey through our pilgrimage.  As last year, my stone was from Balsam Lake where our cottage is and reflects on the peace and joy I always feel in the lovely cotttage country of Ontario. Also as last year, my prayer was one of thanks for the happiness that my life is and the blessings I have in friends and family.

Continuing on from the cross, we peaked a further 100ft in altitude to the highest point in the Camino.  The wind remained wild and the temperature brutal as we next commenced a really tough 10km downhill trek over exposed loose rock, giving back a full 1,000 metres in altitude – my knees have requested an Aleve tonight!

So, it was freezing, it was super windy, the terrain and elevation changes were brutal and there was not a cloud in the sky and it was one of my most favourite walks ever!!!!  Early on I reflected that I felt like Heidi or Maria or maybe a goatherd…. oh dear, the singing commenced again.  I did only make it through Lonely Goatherd though as I already did The Sound of Music in full yesterday, so I quickly switched to some favourite hymns. The best part was, because the wind was blowing so hard and because Rosemary is faster on downhills I felt quite free to belt them out for real and not just in my head.  I particularly felt good doing Battle Hymn of the Republic really loud (this is how my Mom had left written instructions for it to be sung at my Dad’s funeral and my cousin Robin, who so gratiously and beautifully conducted both their services, instructed everyone to comply – and they did!). 

We arrived at our intended stop for the day far too early so pressed on a further 5km to Ponferrada. This is a great town and is home to the amazing Castillo de Los Templarios – the 12th century Templar castle. It is amazing and I am just as in awe of it as last year – but this year we managed to get in!!!!!  It was great and still sent a shiver down my spine.  I will confess however, that I can’t help but picture John Cleese looking down and taunting me with a French accent.  I did make Rosemary watch the clip from the Holy Grail because she had to understand why I kept saying stupid things like “your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries”.  She seemed mildly amused but perhaps only because I was laughing so hard.  And I did make her watch the Dead Parrot sketch a few nights ago too.

Cippi at the door to the albergue this morning,

Dinner last night 

Our room last night.

La Cruz de Ferro

A beautiful day

Templar Castle