I just want it over and done with now so I can go home and stop carrying everything on my back. The novelty of bunk beds wore off weeks ago and the people are getting less friendly and more money grabbing or that’s how it feels anyway. Getting to O Cebreiro it’s just a tourist trap, coaches parked briefly to unload or pickup masses of camera toting visitors. I like the legend of the pilgrim who was lost in fog but brought to the peak and safety by the sound of a Shepherds flute. It’s all very Celtic in Galicia, the round houses, the music, the countryside is very reminiscent of Scotland for me.
The Pilgrims that are around are all newbies or new to me anyway, we’re approaching the place where the minimum distance to receive the Compostela certificate of one hundred kilometres for walkers begins and already fifty k’s under the two hundred required by cyclists, I’ve been warned to expect large numbers wherever I go once I reach that point.
The road is not nice and quite how the Lorry drivers can do those speeds around bends is beyond me, one false move and it’s thousands of feet to drop down towards Santiago and the coast. There are cows everywhere and I’m nearly stampeded by an overexcited herd being let out for the summer to pasture, jumping round the corner of a house only to be visited as if by magic by an old woman with a bunch of pancakes in her wizened hand and sugar in a bowl in the other. She’s enquiring after my nationality then uses memorized phrases in English to offer me one of her wares for pudding, spotting the huge ham and cheese sandwich in my hand, I think how nice of her to do that for Pilgrims right up until she asks for a donation for it. “Donativo?” It was nice, even though there was a sodding hair in it. Jumping onto a wall to avoid another herd and most especially the dogs as I’ve heard they can be overprotective but they’re no trouble really.
I had read much about blisters before coming but not tendonitis which was far more dangerous to my mission, and had also been made aware that a shepherds dogs in Galicia might be an issue when the only problem I had the whole time was two strays outside Mansilla de las Mulas, two dogs that were being wound up by kids in some run down farming village and the time a huge pet wolf (might as well have been) bullied me into giving him a lot of ham to get him to stop following me, when I foolishly stopped outside his house to make a sandwich on the way to Ponferrada. Well duh you might say, but I saw that he was safely behind their gate, only to realise that there was no fence around the garden, just the gate but that’s Spain. At the start of the Camino all the dogs are chained up guard dogs and you can tell where other Pilgrims are by whether you hear one barking in front or behind you.There’s someone up ahead and I’m just about losing the will to drudge on so keep stopping for breaks rather than catch them up although they look familiar. As I reach another high point with another Pilgrim statue I realise that it’s Fat Snoring Spanish guy and Funky Chick, I hadn’t seen them since our lunch together watching Ben Hur in Calzadilla ten days before.
It’s cheered me up no end to see them both again so once we’ve taken photos for each other we ‘hasta luego’ and part again, I’m feeling a bit better now but still just wishing the time away until I can go home, just so jaded and preoccupied as I still can’t work out when I’ll be in Santiago or what to do about travel plans. I’m not sure why these three days were so tough but I’d become blaze about yet another amazing view, yet another crowd of strangers in the accommodation, yet another identical Mass.
I make it to Tricastela and although tempted to stop at the Municipal Albergue down by the river but I soldier on into town as it looks like quite a way to walk back from the shops. A woman outside the place ushers me in although I was going to stop there anyway she needn’t have bothered with the hard sell. Walking into the dormitory, there are people there already so I just find a bed in the corner and start unpacking, when there’s a huge scream and I realise to my great relief that it’s Jess! After a wonderful hug and being introduced to her new friend Rebecca I feel immediately better. Once I’ve showered and stopped myself from getting overemotional we go straight to the nearest bar for her standard beer and crisps at the end of the day. It’s so wonderful to be able to enjoy spending time rather than miserably killing it and her friend seems really nice too so I’m in heaven again and able to relax plus now I can just steal Jess’s plan for the rest of the Camino instead of having to make my own which is what is doing my head in.
There’s a load of people planning to get together, like Stefan, Harry, Steffy, Otmar and we can slow down and enjoy the hike to get to Santiago for the Sunday Mass and chill for a few days afterwards until the reunion. There won’t be enough time to walk to Finisterre and get back again but I’m not too worried as my knee wouldn’t take the extra 90k anyway once I’ve reached the end of the Pilgrimage, that’ll have to be a bus trip instead. I get my new plan finalised over the next few days and travel plans out of the way and suddenly I feel fine again. I had read that it was a good idea to have company towards the end of the Camino, how right they were.
We went shopping for provisions and bumped into two of Jess’s acquaintances, Jeff and Megan from America. We decided to get in wine and something for dinner back at the Albergue and have them over to play cards later after Mass. I hadn’t been to Mass in a while and it was great to see some people who were keen to have that experience, in fact Jeff, Megan and Rebecca all exemplified the feeling I had in my first week as they had all started in the past few days. It really brought home to me just how jaded and set in my ways I’d become and they brought back an energy and enthusiasm that I’d lost. I had all but healed but Jeff was having tendon issues so I passed on my Ibuprofen cream and a thank you to them for revitalising me just by being so enthused about what they were doing. “You’ve reminded me why I came here in the first place.”
Mass was incredible. The Priest made so much sense I wish I’d recorded his words of wisdom, instead of a stuffy service, as a group of Pilgrims we were all invited onto the ‘stage’ to sit in a group around him. Megan was roped into translating everything and I’m so glad she was there as I would have been dismayed not to have heard him. I found it profoundly moving, the fact that I’d had such a bad few days only to meet old friends and new friends, his words were inspirational and the whole thing was more than I could ever have wished for. He certainly had his own humanistic way of portraying what I’ve always resented about the Church, especially the Catholic Church and it’s views on original sin. It was almost new age what he was espousing, all about love for oneself and each other. I was reborn as a Pilgrim afterwards…I didn’t really care what the next few days would bring now, open again to possibilities good and bad as long as they’re new it’s ok. We would walk together in the morning after hours spent chatting until late that night. The pattern was set for the rest of the Camino.
Coming soon Day 31 - Sarria and the Fortress of Solitude - 21k
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