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.
Camino 2017 - the sequel 