Hey everyone, so I realize this is a little (or a lot) late, but I've finally got free time again, so better late than never, right? These past couple of weeks have been insanely busy, what with spring break, regular homework, school excursions, and a ten (Spanish sized) page research paper, but with the paper out of the way I can get back to this. In this post I'll share about the first half or so of spring break, and write the rest another time, so this doesn't get too long (yeah right).
For those of you who don't know, the Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage with the main route starting in southern France and going to Santiago de Compostela, a city in the northwest part of Spain, with the destination being the cathedral de Santiago de Compostela, where they think the remains of the Apostle James and two of his disciples are located. I walked with Erin, Ian and Eric, and we started in the town of Ponferrada, 200 km from Santiago. Not long after we got there we met this young woman from Germany, Vicky, that was just starting too. She had came by herself, so we invited her to walk with us, at least for part of the time. We set off the following morning around 8, and ended up walking for 29.3 km the first day, and we stopped in this little town called Pereje. While we were at the albergue (hostel for pilgrims on the Camino), we also met these two guys each with one of their children, from Murcia, staying at the same place, and they showed us these elevation charts they had of the Camino, so we could see the hill that we would have to tackle the following day. We decided that we would walk to a small town a few kilometers past the summit of the hill, and just hung out and got ready for bed.We were in bed by 10, for the first time since I've been in Spain, haha.
The next morning we were up at 6:30, because you want to get as much walking done early in the day before it gets hot, and to make sure you get a spot at an albergue (more of an issue during the summer). The first couple of hours weren't too bad, the path followed the road weaving amongst the hill through the valleys, so it was pretty flat. Eventually we reached the hill, and started up. It was tough and it took quite a while, as we had to go up over 1000 meters in elevation. Vicky and I stopped at this little village near the top, and she went into a bar to get a bottle of water. While she was there she also found out that the albergue we wanted to go to was closed for renovations, so when we caught up with the others we decided to just wait and see how we were feeling after reaching the top before making our decision as to where to stop. We finally reached the top and the path more or less leveled out; the view was beautiful, we could just look back and see all the hills and valleys that we had walked through up until then. As we walked along the top, we also crossed over the border from Castilla y Leon to Galicia, and not long after that we came to the village. Vicky decided to stay there for the night because she had a lot of bad blisters, but the rest of us decided to go another 9 kilometers to another albergue. We set off, and it was brutal. Both Erin and I weren't feeling too good, and the path involved several big inclines that really slowed us down. We finally got to Alto de Poio after walking a total of 31 km. It wasn't actually a town, just a bar with an albergue in the back and a hostel across the street. The albergue there was the smallest, dirtiest, and coldest one we stayed in the whole time, and we had to buy something to eat from the bar because there was no grocery store for kilometers.
Day three was the most miserable weather-wise, it sprinkled or rained pretty much all day so some of the paths were pure mud. We had to walk up a hill that was pure mud, and I thought for sure Erin or Ian were going to fall and slide all the way down because they weren't using walking sticks like Eric and myself, but we made it up. Later on in the day we had to walk through some small hills, and it was so foggy you couldn't see more than 15 ft. in front of you. Eric walks faster than Erin or I, so soon we lost sight of him. We figured he would get a little ways up, and then stop and wait for us, but after 1/2 hour we still hadn't seen him. Even after we finally got out of the fog we couldn't see him anywhere, so we just kept walking, hoping to find him. I think we walked 15 km or so without any big breaks because we were looking for him. We finally found him at the town of Sarria, waiting for us. We went to the public albergue in town, and got some beds. Us guys went out shopping for some supplies and some food, and we went back and made a ton to eat, it was sooo good after a hard day of hiking. All in all we went 32 kilometers that day.
Day four was my last day of hiking, because I only had 2 1/2 days to walk 113 kilometers so I could catch my train down to Madrid. The walking was fine; we actually had to get off the Camino at one point because there was a herd of cows coming down the path and there wasn't room to go around them. Only in Spain (or Wisconsin I think). We also stopped at the 100 kilometer marker, and took our picture by it. I stopped in the town of Portomarin, after walking 23 kilometers, but the others went on because they didn't have to catch a train as soon as I did. I went to the albergue, and went out to get some food. When I came back, I found one of the guys from Murcia and his son Jorge playing cards, so they invited me to play with them. We played some American games, and then Nico, the other dad, came back to the albergue with his daughter Maria, and we all played a Spanish card game with a Spanish deck. When they found out that I was by myself, they invited me to eat supper with them, so that was really cool just getting to hang out with them. We hung out a little bit longer, and then it was time for bed.
Alright, that's good for now, I'll post some more later on this weekend, so talk to all of you later!
