We made it--Buen Camino!

Stage 33: Castenada to O Pedrouzo (27 km--21 degrees)

Last night in Casteneda we stayed in Albergue Santiago, a small family-run place with an attached cafe.  The owners took a liking to us and treated us very well.  Supper was a feast of ribs and when we were finishing dessert, out came the "special" drinks.  One tasted like Kahlua and the other like Ricola cough drops--as designated walker, Betty made sure we got home safely.

We have been waking up at 5:00 since about the second day of our journey and it has always been dark, but only for a short while.  However,  Spain is almost big enough to accommodate three time zones and has only one.  The net result of this geography and our westward journey is that the sun rises later and later each day. Today we spent our first hour in the dark and stopped for breakfast in Ribadiso--the cafes and bars are opening earlier now to accommodate the traffic of us dark walkers.

It was a cool misty morning and we started above the clouds.  As the sun rose we descended through the fog into forests of eucalyptus.  The sights, smells and even the sounds of roosters were reminiscent of our years in Hlatikulu, Swaziland.

The walk was marked by unusual sights: pilgrims sleeping on the side of the trail, a pilgrim with a donkey, a pilgrim on crutches, a carver selling walking sticks, a bar offering free foot baths, and the largest pan of paella that I have ever seen.  We also saw our first pig of the trek, which is strange because pork is the most common item on any menu.  Laurel calculates that the three of us combined have eaten enough bacon, jamon, Serrano ham, lomo, and chorizo to have put one swine herder's kid through college.

Today, we solved a mystery lasting over a week.  Since entering Galicia, we had noticed small elevated rectangular buildings in many of the yards we passed.  Theories abounded.  First, they were crypts--a place to keep your family skeletons; then they were ham curing sheds (the pigs are hiding somewhere?); finally, we checked Google and found out that they are granaries or corn cribs. Google take the fun out of everything!

Tomorrow we will arrive at our destination and in many ways we don't want it to end. First imagined then experienced and soon to be a wonderful memory, the Camino has been a great way to spend the summer with two good friends.

Ancient Chinese Secret

Stage 32: Palas de Rei to Casteneda (24 km-- 22 degrees)

Our typical morning routine:  get up at 5:00 am; visit the bathroom quickly (sometimes our "own," sometimes a shared facility); put on hiking clothes (half of which were donned before bed, and half of which have usually been worn for a couple of days already); doctor up our feet for their daily trek (smearing with vaseline and applying band-aids in strategic spots to allay blisters); eat a quick bite from our grocery bag (bread and peanut butter, a banana, crackers, or whatever we have); fill water bottles; don headlamps; grab hiking sticks; drop Betty's and Laurel's packs in the lobby for our buddy JacoTrans to pick up and transfer to our next Albergue down the road (Jim carries his daily); Jim sets "Run-keeper" to log our distance for the day; and then hit the trail (normally by 6:00 am).  It's still dark, but we've scoped out the route out of town the day before, and our headlamps locate the way-markers.  After walking for about an hour, it starts getting lighter.  We are used to being the only peregrinos we see as we set out in the morning, but now that we are within 100 kms of Santiago, there are many other early pilgrims; along the dark path in front of us, we see their lights bobbing here and there.

The weather gods favoured us today with cooler temperatures and overcast sky, but no rain.  The mountains are well behind us now, and our terrain consists of wide rolling hills and valleys with numerous streams.  We walked through fragrant eucalyptus forests, with foggy hills covered in pine trees on the horizon beyond.  Our Swaziland friends can picture it, as it seemed like we would come upon The Forester's Arms Hotel (near Mbabane) around the next bend!  And at another part of the trail, we passed by a stand of poplar trees which had dropped yellow leaves all over the path.  The farms are bigger, and look more prosperous, in this area than were those in the mountains when we first had entered Galicia.  Black slate roofs have now reverted to red tile again; stone houses are more likely to be covered with plaster/stucco and painted white or other colours.  The ubiquitous "Pilgrim's Menu" finally has more variety -- in recent days, we've had delicious beef stew, chicken thighs with mushrooms, grilled octopus with potatoes, lemon chicken, roast pork, fish, salads, slow cooked beef tongue with peppers, and chickpea-tripe soup (okay, that last one was not exactly delicious, but it was alright--Laurel tried it).
We easily reached Casteneda, where we'll do laundry and relax.  Only 45 kms yet to go!

It's a rocky road to Santiago

... sometimes ... but most of the time, the path is smooth!

Stage 31: Portomorin to Palas de Rei (25 km--24 degrees)

Our early start today allowed us to arrive at our destination before the sun reached its peak. The hottest part of each day seems to be around 3:00 and we were already done doing the bedbug check by 12:30.
It felt dreamlike walking early this morning as the path was full of perigrinos by 5.45 many of whom did not become visible until the sun rose. We passed many different types of fences today--some filled us with awe over their workmanship and others with fear over what they promised. The sign warning of the vicious dog actually had their fence wide open and the vicious creature partaking in siesta. It did remind us though of a recent pilgrim dog biting incident that occurred in one of the villages we 
walked through. Most dogs are left to wander and we joke that our day hasn't really 
started until we hear a rooster crow and see a village cat and a dog.

This  Grid is for all the gardeners or flower lovers. I have never seen such large hydrangeas or such variety of colour!

We are interacting or observing many different types of pilgrims now that we are within 100 km. of Santiago. A couple of days ago we met our first family travelling with a baby (toddler). The father carries the little girl on his back and the mom who is 5 months pregnant carries the backpack. This morning we passed our first two-wheel bike camping set-up. They were still sleeping though the sun was long up. We also passed and was passed by a young man carrying a guitar. Later in the day as we passed an outdoor restaurant he was playing and singing while other pilgrims video taped his performance. Finally we ran into a fairly large group all originating from the same village in the Andalucia region in Spain. They seemed to walk in two distinct groups--one group of young children with two adults and one group of four with a young man, Mario, in a wheelchair. One group would call out and the other would answer. Jim pushed Mario for about a kilometre and talked to him and his brother Anthonio. The last 100 km seems like a different Camino.

Stage 30: Sarria to Portomorin (25 km--30 degrees)

We had a hot but relatively quiet night's sleep. The twenty plus school students who checked into our Albergue at 8:00 and woke the baby in the next room had quieted down by 9:00 and the baby had cried herself to sleep.  Distant drumming and undulating waves of muted cheers provided the soundtrack to a deep sleep, so deep that we slept an hour longer than we intended.

We quickly roused ourselves and completed our morning routines with the focus and attention of zombies.  Breakfast, foot care, sunscreen, teeth cleaning, ablutions --all carried out in perfunctory silence. I barely stopped myself from brushing my teeth with Voltarin.

We wended our way through Sarria up to the church and ancient quarter. The streets were littered with straw and adorned with beautiful cloth banners and heraldry.  It soon became apparent that we had slept through the Primera Fiesta Irmandiña de Sarria, a medieval festival celebrating a peasant revolt that occurred in the 1400s.  It looks like we missed a great party!

As we left town it was clear that something had changed--we were not alone.  Hundreds of pilgrims now filled the trail, like the ants that had crossed our path on the meseta, marching in columns and carrying loads several times their body weight [note to self: fact check ant--back pack comparison].  Sarria is the closest city to the 100 km radius of Santiago de Compostela and therefore the minimum distance for a pilgrimage to qualify for holy certification. Most of the additional perigrinos are Spanish and they, now,  far outnumber the rest of us.  The trail is no longer quiet and pensive, but exciting and festive.  The subtext of the conversations, unintelligible to my ears, was "we can do this...we will do this!"  By mid morning we were walking though hay country and saw an old gentleman farmer raking his crop by hand.  We also marked the 100 km point with a group photo.

As we descended to our destination of Portomarin we were impressed by its setting beside the  dammed Rio Miño. In the 1960s the river was dammed to create the Belesar reservoir, putting the old village of Portomarín under water. The most historic buildings of the town were moved block by block and reconstructed in the present site, including the Church of San Juan of Portomarín.  To make sure that the reconstruction of the church was faithful to the original in both appearance and engineering, workers numbered each stone. (The funny thing is it still looks like a kid put it together with Lego!)  Some of the numbers are still visible on the blocks today, as well as some mysterious etchings that date back to the days when the blocks were originally quarried in the Middle Ages.