Day 7. Arrival to O'Cebreiro

Sam wants me to correct the blog and accurately record that we only walked 6 miles uphill, not 9 miles as previously stated yesterday. (9 sounds better than 6, especially now that we've walked it). But we aim for truth & accuracy, so 6 miles today!  We have now walked a total of 32 miles in 4 days with an even 100 miles left trek to Santiago. I can't wait til tomorrow night when it's LESS than 100. 

Medieval statue is Saint Dopey

Cloudy and a touch of rain-- made the climb of 2100 feet easier though. 

Absolutely the best scenery --even beats the Pyrenees mountains. Fields of wild flowers and blooming trees and bushes. 

This is our "Casa" =rural hotel for tonight. Pretty cool. 

Day 6 continued...community dinner was great!

First course of Pilgrim's dinner at Hostel. It was a delicious sweet potatoes, onion, basil soup. This is Chris from Germany.  Cute, eh?

Second course of our meal. This is our room mate, Melanie, from Germany. Traveling alone, left her 3 kids with her husband at home. 

Group dinner of 14 pilgrims from Germany, France, Spain, USA (Washington State). 

The main course was a wonderful pasta dish. Dessert was a lemon custard. The meal included All the wine and food you could want provided by the two brothers that have owned the hostel for the past 14 years. 

After dinner, this young guy from Brazil (another cutie pie) played the guitar that was in the community room. Only 4 of us stayed up past 9:30 pm to listen to him. Lights out at 10:00pm, so we didn't have much time. Robin Nott would have been so proud of me. They knew John Denver so I played "leaving on a jet plane" and the other 2 sang along with me in the chorus.  That was pretty cool since they know very little English. ;)

Tomorrow we have THE most difficult hike of our trip. We travel 9.5 miles uphill with a 2000 foot elevation.  I tried to convince Sam to send his pack on the taxi to rest his back/shoulders for a day but he doesn't want to do that gig. 

Thanks for following our story. We really appreciate your time to log on and listen to our journey on the Camino. 

Buenas noches,

M/S

Day #6 Hostel adjustment period

This is my favorite picture so far. The bar we ate at last night had this stuffed boar's head and 2 stuffed full sized house cats hanging on the wall. The pig is funny but the cats were just creepy and sad. 

Followed the river again today, beautiful weather. 70 degrees/sunny. 

I look frompy but I liked the statue and it compliments the next picture. 

Buen Camino !

This poor guy's job is to spread the manure with a rake after the truck dumps it in the hilly fields. He's looks about 70 years old. (He's probable 50 but rural life is tough in Spain). And you thought your job was bad!

Last night was rough. I'm calling it the 'hostel adjustment period' following the aftermath of nice hotels. I thought we could have it both ways (nice hotel alternating with hostels) but not without a toll. I had difficulty falling asleep with 12 people in the room. So I read our only book which is the Camino guidebook. I read ahead about 100 miles by using my handy dandy headlight ( light that straps around your forehead so you look like a total dweeb.). 

Then I realized that the beam of light was perfect for looking for bedbugs!  This turned out to be more disturbing than entertaining, so I quit doing that. (Never saw any bugs, btw). 

Then I was cold do I pulled up the blanket that came with the bunk, until I imagined the 20 billion germs that were swarming on the blanket and pushed that off me. 

Then I was cold. The windows were all open, no screens, and I didn't want to crawl over the Germans to shut it. I swear that everybody was sleeping but me. Sam can sleep anywhere, anytime. 

Everyone except us and one young women left the hostel by 7;00 am.  

We left about 8:00 am.  

We had a great comfortable day today. We walked 8.3 miles along flat turrain. 

Has anybody noticed that I haven't complained once about my feet, neck, back, knee or any other body part?  We both feel great!  Sam has been carrying his pack plus a few of my things, plus our water --he's doing amazing!  I think it must have a lot to do with the training at the Colorado Springs elevation of 6000 feet above sea level. Plus not carrying my 17 lb pack.  

Going to dinner now. Adios!

M/S

Day 5. Pereje

Home Sweet Home. 

Tonight's Hostel :  Our beds are against the back wall, opposite the window. 

Lunch by the River. Another beautiful day!

Right after I wrote how rare castles are on the Camino, we run into another one. 

We followed a river all day today. 

Monument honoring pilgrims. Many people attach little gourds to their back backs as a remembrance of the medieval pilgrims. (That's what is hanging from the statue's stick). I guess 500 years ago people didn't need to carry clothes, phone, camera, chargers,meds, sleeping bag liner, toiletry bag, towel, rain gear,extra shoes & passport. Many pilgrims died on the Camino. (And I thought hostel conditions and hiking were challenging nowadays!)

Hola,

We walked 9 miles today to reach this super small village of Pereje. We are realizing that the numbers of pilgrims on the Camino are much less than last fall. Last year it was a race to get a bed and it was crowded on the trail and in the hostels. We did not have a reservation for this hostel so we got up early and arrived 4 hours later at 12:15pm. We were the first ones here!  Nobody else checked in until after 4:00. Right now there are only 6 others in this room that sleeps 14. We are the only Americans. All the rest of the people are German & Austrian. It's much more relaxed and much easier to enjoy the day. 

I had an impromptu Spanish lesson in the street today. We were waiting for them to open the hostel doors at 12:30. An old woman was walking down the street and sternly told me to go down to the bar and tell them to unlock the door. I had already been to the bar (no surprise to most of my friends ) and the bartender told me to wait til 12:30. So imagine me playing charades in the street with this kindly senior lady...trying to tell her in Spanish that I already spoke to him. Finally I gave up and I let her walk me to the bar to talk to the same 'Chico '. The bartender was confused but the old lady was satisfied and let me go.  It was pretty funny. 

Dinner time, got to go. 

Mary & Sam 

Day #4 cacabelos

Vineyards in the spring

View from Camino 

These Storks are frequently seen sitting in their massive nests on the top of poles in the center of villages. 

Houses for sale along the Camino in a small village. Location, location, location!

For Sale: "Quaint little cottage.  Needs love"

Lunch break!

Hey. We walked our 9.1 miles today to reach our hotel in cacabelos in 4.5 hours. We took our time with a picnic lunch and break. It's so much more relaxed knowing we have a hotel reservation. Ahhhhh...

We met some people from San Diego and they recommended a restaurant for dinner. At dinner we met a women from Holland and a couple from Australia. It's always fun to try to guess where people are from by their accents while you're ease dropping on their conversations ( they were at the table across from us). After the meal I asked them where they were from and that led into an hour conversation. It was so interesting. The Camino gathers people from all walks of life.  I'm sure we will see them again On the Way. 

But I wanted to share with you that the Australian women, Ruth, who was born a Canadian until she was 17, had a very thought provoking story. She was married with 2 daughters for 30+ years then her husband, Matt, had a devastating accident that left him a quadriplegic. A while afterwards, she met the guy she's with today , Ben.  Now they are together with her husband's approval--not divorced. They all get together for holidays. Matt has met another partner, too. Unusual , but It works for them. 

The Dutch woman is divorced and travels around the world on her own. She loves meeting new people and traveling. Her English is very good like most of the Dutch since they learn it in elementary school. 

Well Sam is asleep already, so I better sign off, too. We are walking 9 miles tomorrow and staying in a municipal hostel that has 30 beds in 3 rooms. It's the only accommodation in the city and we don't have a reservation. So that means we wake up and hit the road early to make sure we get a bed tomorrow night. 

We have noticed a lot less pilgrims at this time of the year. At first I thought we must be going the wrong way because where are all the other hikers?  We are alone most of the way!  The weather is beautiful at 70 degrees, sunny with no humidity. Perfect hiking weather. 

Oh, BTW. If you are ever in Cacabellos, Spain, DON'T go to the archeology museum...not worth it!  Nothin' but one room of broken pottery bits and pieces. We Learned that the hard way. 

Tomorrow we will walk to the village of Pereje. Thanks for going along with us!

Buenas Nochas. 

M & S

Day 3: Ponferrada

View from Templar Castle

Ponferrada's Sil River with castle 

Castle entrance over moat --drawbridge is gone now

   Book from castle library written @ 1400

   Amazing clarity and colors. 

We took a 3 hour train ride from Palencia today to reach Ponferrada. We start our Camino tomorrow morning. We plan to walk 9.1 miles tomorrow. (Jade will take the backpack taxi). 

We had time to tour the Templar Castle that dates back to the 12th century. It is a massive structure that was recently reconstructed as a historic site. The coolest thing about this castle was the medieval book library. I never knew castles had specific rooms designated as libraries!  The books are all under glass so pilgrims don't get chocolate all over the pages. Beautifully bound books written on religion, natural science, maps and feudal life. 

Another unusual fun fact is that castles along the Camino de Santiago (French Way) are rare. It's common to see medieval cathedrals, churches, monestaries, & wineries, but no castles. 

We are staying at a replica of a castle called the Temple Hotel. (The lobby pictures are below). I still wish we had brought that suit of armor back from England!  

We are jet lagged and tired so signing off for now. 

Lobby in hotel

Sir Drinks-a-lot, the second

Day #2: Twenty-nine hour journey back to Spain!

Hello from Palencia, Spain!

No, it wasn't on the itinerary but we are here anyway!

We had planned to be further down the road on the expected second 2.5 hour train trip across the west of Spain but it just didn't happen. We had booked a hotel tonight in Ponferrada, but planes, trains, delays and cancellations prevented us from making our goals. So we had to pay for a second hotel for tonight. But after being awake for 30 hours, we don't mind  camping out here. Well, it's not exactly camping out...it's a Marriot. Nothing says "welcome back to Spain" like Señor Marriot. 

We found out Tuesday night that our Wednesday afternoon flight from Detroit to Newark, NJ was cancelled due to weather. We called United and booked an earlier flight. Thank you to my wonderful nephew, John, for being so flexible and changing his schedule to accommodate being our chauffeur to the airport. Then that flight was delayed until 8:00pm and we would miss our connecting flight in jersey to Madrid, Spain. 

Fortunately the good people at United airlines diverted us from going to New Jersey to going straight to Paris, France!  Needless to say, we missed that bad weather in Jersey!  From Paris we had a 2 hour lay over to Madrid.  When we got to Spain we found out that today is a national holiday (like Labor Day but without the parades). All the trains to ponferado were sold out. Bummer. 

Luckily, there was one pokey slow train that the Spaniards refuse to ride so we boarded that half empty train for 4 hours (normally a 90 minute trip) to reach this town of Palencia. I've noticed that there are no Americans here and even less tourists. 

So we checked in and went across the street to get some dinner. It was a busy bar with friendly locals. A nice lady saw me taking pictures and offered to take our picture. So here we are celebrating our safe arrival back to the Camino. 

Tomorrow we have train tickets to Ponferado where we will start the Camino trail on Saturday morning. 

Thanks for following our blog. It's really fun to know our friends and family care enough to go on this Camino with us. 

Buenas noches,

Mary & Sam