By the end of our rest day we had had enough of Ponferrada. It was quite a big place, about 70, 000 but there was graffiti everywhere. I can't remember walking down a street or alley with none. The castle was magnificent from the outside but pretty ordinary inside, much of it was blocked off.
Suffice to say we were happy to be on our way.
Having over 22km to walk we decided to hit the road early. We got our brekky out of the way, unimpressively I must admit. The cafe at the hotel we were staying in was pretty skimpy. They gave us the bare minimum. Monica had coffee and toast and got one piece of toast. Some of the other joints we have stayed in laid a lot more out to choose from for brekky. The rest of us didn't fare much better, the room was nice, the cafe rubbish.
We were on the road by 8am (remember this is only about 45 minutes after sun up in Spain this time of year. It gets up late and sets about 10pm). The morning was cool and lots of peregrinos were out at the same time. We walked a brisk pace out of Ponferrada through the suburbs and into a sort of semi rural area, the urban sprawl gave way to more acreage type places, villas if you like. They then gave way to a more market garden style of set up. There was a cool mist in the air and a light fog brought a silvery perspective to the depth of the surrounding countryside.
A Ponferrada Villa.
A misty market garden.
The flat market garden style countryside gradually became rolling hills, the hills gradually got bigger as we approached again the mountains that lay ahead of us in a day or so.
Naturally we walked through a number of beautiful Spanish villages. They represented the full spectrum of what you get out here, crumbling old houses that can scarcely stand, uninhabited except by the local cats right through to pretty spick and span modern dwellings, all rendered, all lovely.
Notice St James (Santiago they call him round here) on the gate post, the scallop shell below his feet and the Spanish flag above.
You just walk past some stunning things, you could take a million photos a day.
As the going got steeper and the day got hotter we all found it hard to be back on the road. It is no small thing walking through Spain in the middle of summer even up in these hills where the air is cooler. Monica has had a few struggles with blisters and she was not having a good day. The singular piece of sustenance at desayuno set the scene for the rest of her day. She got more and more quiet and miserable as the day wore on. Our destination seemed to hover in the distance and never get much closer, like Tantalis' grapes from that ancient fable, always just out of reach.
It did not stay there forever though and in the hot afternoon sun we staggered sore footed and thankful into Villafranca del Bierzo. Of course our accommodation was right out the other side of town so we pretended to like each other more than we wanted to for a few more minutes until we found our haven.
And what a place.
Above is a photo of a glass of water I drew from the tap in our room, this was after leaving the tap running for 10 minutes and already having had a shower. Mmmmmmm. If you come to Villafranca del Bierzo, don't stay at Casa Mendez, or if you do ask them to pour you a glass of water from your room before you decide to stay. Suffice to say that I bathed in it but didn't clean my teeth with it or drink any. I've swum in worse on friend's farms.
The evening wore away as it tends to on the Camino, a beer or two in the afternoon, a rest in your room, dinner and an attempt to go off to sleep in a hot room with muchos fiesta occuring on the street below, or at the least vehicles revving and zooming by. By 1am it has usually quietened down, by 4 or 5am it has cooled enough to sleep comfortably. Of course you sleep better than you think you would because generally you are exhausted, you get used to the rhythm of life. In fact it is quite nice.
As Zoe had been suffering from either a head cold or hayfever all day and was pretty miserable and Monsta had been having foot issues we decided that they would take a taxi to the next village in the morning, only about 16km. We looked at our guide book and realised that there was two ways to get to Valcarce, either by climbing a mountain with a 400 metre ascent followed immediately by a 400 metre descent all in the space of a kilometre or two (the book said allow an extra 2 hours just for that hill). Alternatively we could take the hard way and go over 3 hills that were higher and steeper, adding an extra 5 or 6 hours to the day. It was at that point that the decision made itself. Harry and I braced ourselves for a boy's day up some serious country while the girls braced themselves for a nice 20 minute car ride through the Asturian hills into Galicia and a day of cafe con leche and chocolate caliente.
Monica went to bed disappointed but resigned to the fact that dodging a mountain or two now would put her in better stead for the remaining 180 kilometres or so that still lay between us and Santiago de Compostela.
Zoe went to bed pumped that she got a day off!
Harry and I went to bed with a smug self satisfaction that as men we were the true champions of the Camino.
We had no idea then what the morning would bring.
Buen Camino Peregrinos.
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