Day: 19 May 2017

Well, when we set off at 8 AM it was 2°C, raining, foggy, with a strong wind and uphill.  What could not get better?  We thought we were finished with uphill yesterday.  One of the town dogs (all showing a commom ancestery) lay unconcernedly on the wet cold street.

As we dropped down the far side of the hill, the rain stopped, the fog lifted, and the wind reduced.  We should have stayed in bed for another half hour.

By the time we stopped for coffee at 10, it was time to remove the rain gear.  This was followed by small rain storm, but the weather improved for the rest of the day.

There were a number of small towns with small churches that were open for lighting candles for friends, as well as a few unguarded entrances to bell towers. There were also a number of ups and downs, some very steep. Every town is located on a hill,  and every hill is associated with two valleys.  Welcome to Galicia.

On one of the heights was a large statue of St Roque walking into the wind.  For those of you keeping track of statues of your saints, St Roque and St Iago (Santiago) are often portrayed very similarly – the hat, cloak, staff and gourd, however St Roque has a dog.  He also displays a symptom of the plague, usually on his leg.  This statue did neither, but it did have a name sign, which helps.

The last 6 km of the trail into Triacastela drops some 600 m, sometimes gradually, sometimes very steeply, but always down.  It brings into play a different set of muscles and bearing points in the shoes.  Coming as the last bit of our 22 km/ 7 hour day it was quite exhausting.  A sangria at the local pub was very welcome.

The 10 euro (C$15) dinner at the resturant was of variable quality.  Maybe it is time to talk more about the food. I had the mixed salad and salmon.  The ‘ensalada mixta’ is a standard first course, Liz’s favorite, but I have been having the soups lately. This salad, not unusual, was an enormous plate of lettuce, with grated carrots, a full tomato (quartered), corn kernals, red peppers, olives, and just to make it non-vegetarian, the inevitable scoop of canned tuna.  The salmon was good, came with chips and more salad.

Vic loves her green beans, and spotted a dish of beans and potatoes.  That came as a whole casserole dish of green beans and a bit of potato.  Nobody could eat that many beans.  She also spotted a nice piece of meat on another diner’s plate.  That was probably not the Menu Del Dia portion that she got. The normal way for the Spaniards to prepare steak is to first take a bull, and run him at full speed through a harp, and cook the slices until DONE. A business opportunity would be to open a meat cutting school in Spain, because they don’t have one.

This morning looked good, 6°C with sun and cloud predicted, so I set off in shorts.  Vic carried her full rain gear. It soon became cold, and with small drops of rain – possibly just condensing fog off the mountains.

The path winds further up the valley at a gentle slope for another km or two, before the climb out really starts.  Vic was saying how beautiful it was; birds singing, flowers on the path side, a babbling brook beside the path, sometimes a bit of sun on our backs.

The climb out of the valley and over the pass is more than 700 meters up in less than 6 km.  The path is good – wet dirt and large rocks – but never ending.  As we left the trees and got onto open slopes, the cold wind picked up, and I began to regret the shorts decision.

Walking is not the only way up – you can rent a horse for a day.  That sounds like a way to get a new set of blisters in a different place.

The first village was only a collection of a few houses and a church that appeared in disrepair.  There was not really enough breath left to investigate.  The climb continued to the second village for a welcome coffee and tortilla.  A big slice of tortilla puts something under your belt that the breakfast bread didn’t.

Thus fortified, we continued uphill.  The scenery was magnificent whenever we stopped for a breath.  The wind made it very cold though. Eventually we reached the pillar that signaled we had entered Galicia.  Here also is the first of the frequent concrete pillars that mark the distance through Galicia to Santiago – precise to one meter, inaccurate within several kilometers.

The trail continued uphill to, finally, O Cebreiro.  Our walk for the day was 8 km, but with the 700 m climb it puts to rest any idea that you are fit.  Vic’s fitness watch indicates a climb of ‘196 floors’.  However, it was only 1 PM, so we did well.

O Cebreiro is a collection of 20 or so stone houses and a reconstructed church.  We are accommodated in one of the houses with 3 rooms on the second floor, a shop on the main floor, and a pub in the basement. Most of the houses in the town include either shops or pilgrim housing.

After checking in, we started to explore the town, but suddenly the clouds closed in, it got even more cold, and it started to rain.  Time for lunch.  After lunch the sun came out, but it didn’t get any warmer.

An item of interest is the Ethnographical Complex.  The medieval housing of the area were called palloza, oval stone walled dwellings with a thatched roof, strong enough to withstand the wind and snow.  There are three or four under preservation, and one open.  It is a split level design, built into the hillside. The lower level forms the stable for the cows, and firewood storage.  It has a wooden loft for hay and for sleeping, as “it benefited from the warmth of the animals below”.

Through a doorway, and up a step, is what amounts to the parlour.  A couple of small cabinets for possessions, including carved wooden utensils, and the main entry doorway.

Up anther step into the kitchen, less than 3 m square. There is an open fire in the middle with a spit and probably a cauldron over it for cooking.  It also probably provided the main source of warmth.  There is one wooden bench on the side of the fire, probably the family sofa.  There is another wooden bench on the other side of the fire that has a large overhead swing down table like a modern child’s high chair, which I assume is the dining room.  Overhead are racks for storage of “cheeses and chestnuts” and for smoking meats.  There is no smoke hole, the smoke leaves through the thatch. The whole building is oriented so that fire is on the downwind end for the prevailing winds.  That puts the family also downwind of the stable.

There is another walled off room with a very small bed “for the oldest married couple in the family”.

I found the whole thing very interesting. So there. There is a photograph in the pub that shows this building with three feet of snow in front. Certainly you would want the warmth of that cow in addition to an open fire.