Okay, okay. Each time we get to a new Spanish city we say it is more beautiful than the last. So, we’ll not try to use comparisons versus others, but Ponferrada was way cool!

But first, the numbers. Today was a 20 miler bringing our 26 day total to 388 miles.  We’ve pretty much walked from Danville to Huntington Beach. Wow!

With a 20 miler in front of us, we wanted to start early, but not spend hours walking in the dark. We left at 8:00, which in these latitudes is still night.

Within 45 minutes, we were on the outskirts of Ponferrada.

Ponferrada has a Knights Templar castle that is fully restored.  Notice the parapets. They look almost Disney-esque.

For us cycling junkies, the world championship of cycling is taking place this week in Ponferrada. This morning, it was the women’s road racing championship. The photo below looks like they are casually riding, but in fact they were moving so fast that I wasn’t sure I captured them in the photo before they were gone!

On leaving Ponferrada, the climate and vegetation once again changed and it looked and felt like we were hiking through Calistoga in the wine county.

We are now literally at the foot of the Cordillera mountain range and will be climbing significantly tomorrow. In addition, the next convenient stop is almost 19 miles down the road. As we look at the guide book, everything after this is much easier, and we only have a week more of hiking before Santiago. Hard to imagine that you can be saddened by not having to hike 15 or so miles every day, but we have loved this journey and will miss it when it is over.

Now for laundry and shower …

We must be getting trail dementia. Yesterday was the 27th day (not the 26th day), so today is the 28th day of walking. We completed 18 miles (shorter than we thought) to bring our grand total to 406 miles. We are now in a beautiful mountain village in the province of Galicia, named O’Cebreiro.

Once again, the morning broke very clear and very cold. Just to add to the fun, there was an even colder wind coming down the narrow canyon that we were walking up.  A bit chilly is a good description.

We followed a stream, or river, for 14 miles of the walk.

In the last 5 miles or so, the elevation went from gradual climb to grinding climb! The views, however, we’re worth it.

Also, we crossed into the final province in Spain of our journey, Galicia.

Galicia is the verdant province, which means RAIN. Sure enough, our last day in Castilla y Leon was sunny and bright, and tomorrow (our first full day in Galicia) is forecast to rain. Yes, Bill will have his rain gear handy.

Hasta Manana.

When last we left our readers, we had just arrived in O’Cebreiro in the Galicia region of Spain. True to form, within 2 hours of being there, it poured down rain! But the lodge we were staying in was warm and dry, so life was good.

O’Cebreiro has the oldest functioning church on the Camino, dating back to the 9th century.

In fact, 800 years ago this year,  St. Francis of Asisi did the Camino and visited this church. Here’s a guy born of a very wealthy family who gives it all up to work with the poor.  Very cool.

We started this morning as soon as there was enough light and the fog had lifted. I took some shots of the fog, but they didn’t come out. However, once the fog lifted, it remained in the valleys and made a great picture.

Interestingly, those flowers that seem to grow out of pavement along the Meseta have a cousin in Galicia. Here’s a photo of the local version.

Tomorrow we will hike to Sarria.  Sarria is noteworthy because it is the last point that a pilgrim can start a Camino and still get credit for it. As a result, the numbers of Pilgrims will increase dramatically. We’ve already seen an increase since Leon.  That’s okay. We don’t own the Camino. It’s just something you have to get used to.

We now have 13 more miles in the bank, 418 down and about 85 to go.

Now for chores …

With another 11 miles in the bank today, we are within 65 miles of Santiago. Who’d have thought that we would think of the equivalent of walking from Danville to Lodi as “close”.

It rained most of last night, but that gave way to a light fog for most of our morning hike.

The fog filled the valley as we walked.

One thing that has amazed us as we’ve walked through Spain is the variety of flowers growing wild. I tried to capture several of them … we’ll see.

Thanks for indulging or stroll through the flowers of Spanish Galicia.

Chores now call …

One month ago, we began this journey in St. Jean Pied de Port.  31 days, 433 miles, and countless friendships later, we are in Portomarin.

The day broke foggy again, but beautiful.  You could feel the excitement of the many new Peregrinos who were joining the Camino at the latest point possible to still be an “official” Peregrino.

As veterans, it fell on us to provide the official “look” and “swagger” of road proven Peregrinos. And hey, we know how to follow the Camino, right?

About a mile into the walk, we crossed a railroad track that I figure will make a good picture. Here it is:

After I snapped the photo, Diane went off to the right because there was a place she could sit to adjust her shoes. I hurried to join her. We continued up that dirt path until it joined a major road, which we followed for another quarter mile before really wondering , “where are the trail signs”, and “where are all the Peregrinos? “. We turned around to retrace our steps and found several neophyte Peregrinos following us!  Oops! Bill alerted the group that this didn’t look right, and after 1/2 mile backtrack (right back to the railroad tracks), he found the left turn IMMEDIATELY following the picture, above.  We had missed it and led several newbie Peregrinos astray. Oh well. They had to learn the hard way that,  “everyone must walk their own Camino”. In other words, don’t trust that guy ahead who seems to know what he’s doing!

Aside from adding another mile to an already 15 mile walk, things went very well. We met several of our old Peregrino friends, like:

Axel: The kind, meticulous planning German from Berlin,

Belgian guy: we’ve seen him for 250 miles, talked to him scores of times and still don’t know his name.

Matje: Great guy from Serbia who once chased us down for a kilometer because he thought we dropped a 10€ note. He was right, we did, but his honesty and kindness won us as friends for a long, long time.  He is also an avid cycling fan (and racer), so we’ve had much professional cycling conversations!

Don and his New Orleans family. Great people.

Don and Marlis, whom we hadn’t seen since our very first day of the Camino.

Galan, who is doing the Camino on crutches.

And literally scores of others. It was truly a hike of conversations, from beginning to end!

Oh, and did I mention this guy who greeted us as we arrived at Portomarin?

Just another day on the Camino. Now for chores …

I’ve debated long about whether to do this post, but decided is valuable to anyone considering the Camino.

So, what happens when you’ve really got to go?

There are many options, including:

1. Being blessed with a great bladder.  Not an option for most.

2. A convenient public restroom. It can happen, usually at restaurants. Typically the lines are very long, and/or it’s a long way until you get to that oasis of a restaurant (remember, you’re walking).

3. A convenient detour off the trail. It’s amazing how few of these exist, that provide good shelter and don’t require you walking another several hundred yards for that privacy.

4. The most common solution? a 1 minute lead on the next hiker and a nice bush, tree, etc.!

And that’s about all the options available!

Now in Sarria, another several hundred additional Peregrinos joined the quest, making that “1 minute” requirement challenging. Thus, a really foggy day helped!

And these are the challenges we Peregrinos face on a daily basis. Yet … we continue.

Today was another 15 miles of rolly polly walking. We are now within 41 kilometers (26 miles) of Santiago. Wow!

Last night, in Palas de Rei, we went to a small nondescript pizza joint for some grub. The owner had a small kitchen right behind the bar and was quite proud of his cooking. And deservedly! Bill ordered and ate one of the best calzones he’s ever had. Diane ordered a 4 cheese and vegetable pizza and greatly enjoyed it. While waiting for the pizza, he treated us to a local delicacy, roasted, home grown peppers, oiled and salted. Man, we’re they good! After dinner he gave each of us his own home made aperitif. It smelled great but was a bit awkward as we don’t drink.

Breakfast we went to another small nondescript bakery, and the pattern was repeated! We were about to simply plant roots in Palas de Rei and eat until we run out of money!

So, I’ve been saving today’s lunch story until now. We passed through a town called Melide which is famous for its octopus. We HAD to have some. Here’s proof that Diane had some:

And, here are the buggers before cooking:

And, here are our Peregrino buddies chowing down:

You guessed it, now for chores.

We walked just short of 15 miles today without snapping a single photo. It’s amazing how you can be both so tired of walking and dreading the finish line, all at the same time. All of our comrades had that same happy/sad appearance.  We passed the 19 km to go sign, then turned into our hotel. 19 km is about 11.5 miles, nearly nothing after 34 days of 15 mile average walking.

We currently have 2 debates going on now. The first: should we get on the road by 6:00 am tomorrow so that we finish by 10:30 and can make the world famous mass at noon, or have a standard start and forsake the mass tomorrow, instead going for the Sunday noon mass?

The second debate is: should we continue on to Finisterre (90 km more) or Muxia (120 km)? Those 2 locations truly are the “end of the Camino”. Many Peregrinos simply take a bus there. We have decided to decide on Sunday, not today.

So that the blog won’t be entirely photo-less, I captured what a “credential” looks like after 34 days of stamping:

Until tomorrow and the finish line.  Now, for chores …

From our hotel outside of Pedrouzo to the entrance of the cathedral of Santiago was 13 miles. Our total, from St. Jean Pied de Port to this cathedral works out to 492 miles. That is roughly the distance from Danville, Calif. to San Diego, Calif.

Tomorrow, we plan on attending the pilgrim’s mass at noon. There are no plans beyond that. There are no miles to walk tomorrow. There is no pack to pack first thing in the morning. Just sleep, eat, mass, eat, talk, eat, sleep. We might get used to that!

Today broke foggy, making it 6 for 6 foggy mornings in Galicia. That’s okay, it makes it somewhat mystical.

We had been warned that many, many additional tourists would join the walk on the last day. Expect crowds. We’d seen the numbers of Peregrinos increase significantly in Leon, then in Astorga, then very significantly in Sarria, so we were braced for crowds. Our journey unfolded differently. For nearly an hour we walked through a beautiful forest with birds chirping, streams flowing, and not a sight or sound of another human besides ourselves. We mostly stayed silent ourselves and listened to God’s symphony. We were blessed.

One we started encountering people, we saw literally scores of friends we’d made over the last 5 weeks.  We can literally say we’ve walked a mile or more with each of them!

Eventually, we reached the city limits of Santiago.

Now, the city of Santiago was never the goal, the cathedral of Santiago was the goal. So, we had more walking to do.

We finally made it just before the sky let loose with a significant downpour.

(Note that, because they are refurbishing the cathedral exterior, there are “facades” over much of the actual building).

The final step in completing this pilgrimage is obtaining a compostela from the Peregrino office. Once again, we saw many of our buddies in line there. After about 20 or so minutes, we also had our compostela.

We have completed this journey.

Tomorrow we rest, we reflect, then we decide if we go on to Finisterre. For now, we are very tired and very content.

Now, on to possibly the last afternoon of chores …