Continued with more pictures.

Gorgeous scenery in the mountains. 

Sam at the bar after a hard day. 

We pass a lot of these cemeteries. 

Day 8. Barnyard Blog

I think the cows are bigger here...look at 

the rack on this girl!

Stopping for tea and diet coke break 

Very aggressive roosters. Mean looking. 

All these animals are in the street/trail  or next to street. 

Ok, you know you are a city slicker if you're taking all these pictures of barn animals. 

Dinner was not do good tonight...ughhh 

Well, today was a tough 9 miles. We took 5.5 hours to reach our Casa hotel. It was a beautiful sunny day at about 72 degrees. We both got a sunburn on the back of our arms--used sunblock everywhere else. 

Tomorrow is our longest and most difficult trek of 10.8 miles. It's mostly downhill which is harder on the knees than uphill. 

I'm beat tonight. Going to bed. 

Adios amigos. 

Day #7 Continued.

OI

Iris' are in bloom everywhere. The always remind me of my sister, Jeanne. Iris was her favorite flower. 

Baptismal font in the local church. 

Overlook across the street from our hotel. 

This region of Spain is unusual because of the strong Celtic influence. Local bars play Celtic music. The houses have thatched roofs instead of slate. 

Tomorrow we walk 9 miles to the next village. Talk to you tomorrow!

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