Day 32 - O Cebreiroto Triacastela

It is interesting to note how the medieval churches have embraced technology.  Most have sound systems, and many have screens. Even the 9th century and oldest extant church associated directly with the pilgrim Way at O Cebreiro, had a number of large screens in the santuary.  Before the mass it showed the time of the mass, during mass it showed the applicable responses in four different languages alternating with inspirational images.  This made the mass conducted in Spanish, much more accessible to the international gathering.

We had our farewell dinner with the four Canadian ladies who were heading back home today, and Rosa, at the restaurant where the ladies dinner was included. Rosa and our dinners are not included.  Kevin and Erica were going to join us, but Kevin's dinner is included, and he was staying at the same place as us, so that fell through. We had a great time, unfortunately, Nadine was feeling under the weather and went back to her room part way through supper.  It was unclear what the problem may have been but Maureen said she got ill on the last day last year.  So perhaps it is exhaustion, or sadness at leaving the Camino.  We all had hugs and wished them Buen Camino on completing their pilgrimage next year.

This morning started out on a somewhat rocky road.  The room we had was in Russ' opinion OK, but Lynn didn't like it from the get go and didn't sleep all night.  So the appearance of the bug in her bed was not welcome news.  We are both a little shell shocked from our bed bug experiences and while it appears to be an unfortunate but unavoidable part of the Camino, it has left us pretty sure that this is our first and last walking trip.

Breakfast was a treat. Russ went down with the suitcase and to get started ordering coffee for breakfast, and Lynn was going to follow.  The door guard, Mrs Sweetness, was just unlocking the door when Russ arrived.  A "desayuno, por favor" was greeted with a "si".  Then a long harangue that included "what is your room number".  Despite my best attempt to explain Lynn would be down with the key, and no, I didn't know the room number, Mrs S was NOT providing any breakfast until the neccessary info was provided.  No tickie, no laundry, or in this case, no breakfast.  Lynn did eventually show up with the key and breakfast appeared.  It then became very humorous to watch every other person show up, some leaving their key in the door of the room, and all subjected to the loud, fast Spanish interrogation "what is your room number".

The first part of our trek today was uphill, which was interesting as we had thought we were at our highest point.  But no, we had to drop 60 metres just to climb 67 metres.  The walk was in the clouds, visibility poor.  It seemed chilly but with the high humidity, we got hot fast, and as with many people, were taking layers off after only a few minutes of climbing.

Every once in a while, we would drop and a view would open up, and then we would climb again and it was clouds.

We walked with a couple from Montreal for a while and heard about the bus /train crash in Ottawa.  We have been totally disconnected from the world and knew nothing about it.

We ran into Kevin and Erica at Alto do Polo, the high point on the trail, where we stopped for a break.  They seemed to be powering along just fine.

Then it was, more or less, all downhill.  The clouds lifted and we were greeted with wonderful views.  The views included cows, many cows, and twice we were on the trail as the farmer moved them to pasture.  We almost wondered if they calculated how fast a pilgrim could walk so as to ensure cows were walking on the same trail.  They are very docile, nice looking, but they do have very big pointed horns and leave a lot of piles of cow manure.

Before walking the Camino a lot of the books, especially the one by Guy Thatcher of Ottawa, talked about cow manure and Guy even had a theory about it - whereby pilgrims would walk around it in the morning but right through it later in the day when they got weary. We were wondering about this, because pretty much until yesterday near Galicia, we never saw cow manure on the trail, only horse manure (and lots of that).  Now we are seeing lots of cow poop.  It seems they can't just put it on one side of the trail or in a straight line, it has to be randomly sprayed over the trail so that your view while walking is of road and dung, rather than scenery.  Then to improve things, there was grandma hosing down her part of the road so that there was liquid manure right across the path.  Ah, yes, the trials and tribulations of the pilgrim.

Climbing O'Ceibriero yesterday, or perhaps a better way of putting it, walking only 8.3 km yesterday, was like a day off.  Today was 'only' 21 km (never thought we'd say that), so pretty easy. The walk into Triacastela was very beautiful. We were in a road cut with an archway of trees overhead - very lovely.

The town is a mix of old rundown buildings and new and we are staying in another Casa, so Lynn was pretty apprehensive. But the place is quite nice, has a lovely patio/garden outside the room, and does laundry for a most reasonable price. So all the clothes have been washed and many dried in a dyer. Halleluhah! The suitcase and backpacks have been sitting in the hot sun on the patio all afternoon, and the local farmacia even had the perfect - washable/reusable - solution to her slight foot problem. So we are very pleased with our accommodation today. Kevin and Rosa are both in the same place. Hopefully Lynn will be able to sleep. The mattress is in a cover, but that doesn't guarantee anything.

Summary - a nice days walk.  Hard to believe but we will be in Sarria tomorrow, so there will be many more pilgrims on the Way, and shortly our journey will be finished.

Distance today - 21 km
Distance total - 660 km