Cacebelos to Ruitelán

Well, today we were up with the chickens and left Cacabelos while it was still dark...I spared Christa the normal Christine-waking-up drama. Not that it helped much...we were still on the road for a very rough 10.5 hours today, despite our early start.

The first leg was beautiful, through vineyards with more blue mountains...I think I will love grapevines forever after this trip, and don´t be surprised if I try to grow some in Virginia. There are vineyards there, so don´t laugh!!!

The first gift we got today was a stop for breakfast in a tiny little town, inside some woman´s dream. She owned a little orange cement hut on the side of the road, with a little picnic area outside of it. She sold coffee and breakfast to passing pilgrims. It was the most beautiful space. The eating area was covered over with a light thatch canopy, and the hut was adorned with blue ceramic Camino tiles, some with the yellow shell sunburst, and one with Ultreïa on it...the pillars around the eating area were blue and purple with silver stars, and on the tables there were vases of fresh flowers and CANDLES...¨Breakfast by candlelight,¨ Christa exclaimed as we stopped. When we ordered our coffee, she came out with an incense stick and lit it. There was beautiful, meditative music playing from a CD player...it was gorgeous, and though I don´t think I got the words right when I asked her, you could just tell this was a dream of hers come to life. It was very peaceful and centering...a wonderful way to start the day.

And it went straight downhill from there. For me, at least.

Not long after we left the hut, I got sick to my stomach. I don´t think it had anything to do with breakfast...I think it was leftover from last night´s pasta. It got worse. In fact, I spent a LOT of quality time today on some of the finest porcelain Western León has to offer. Not fun. Plus, it was hotter than hell today...probably one of the hottest days we´ve had so far.

But I´m getting ahead of myself. After I had to leave the road for a few minutes...ahem...I raced off to catch up with Christa. Ten minutes later I realized I´d lost my hat. DAMMIT.... It´s probably not far, I told myself, and despite my no-backtracking-if-it´s-lost-it´s-lost rule, I went back. And every time I thought of stopping, I thought it must be just around the next bend. It was the FULL ten minutes back. Sigh. Got some extra K´s in today, I guess.

Caught up with Christa in Villafranca del Bierzo, a beautiful little village tucked in between the mountains. The church here is known as ¨little Santiago¨ because in the olden days, when pilgrims were too sick or weary to finish their Camino, they could get the same compostela from Villafranca. Well. We tried to find the right church, and after visiting three, we still weren´t quite sure which it was. We could see it coming in, but up close, we couldn´t tell. We got THREE stamps in Villafranca...ha ha. I´m on my second credential now, by the way.... Anyway...we headed out.

We were supposed to have two options leaving Villafranca...the ¨easy¨ one along the road, and the ¨camino duro¨ that headed up and over the mountain and was supposed to be QUITE a challenge. Rule: ALWAYS take the long route...NEVER take the road. The long route is usually away from the road and therefore much more beautiful. The extra Ks don´t matter. DO IT. And even if it climbs a mountain, the views will be breathtaking.

Well, we tried. But we missed the turn. And as we headed off on the road between the mountains, and the turn looked less and less likely, we stopped and debated going back to find it. We asked a local, pointing in our map books and asking where we were, and he assured us the fork in the road was still ahead of us. We weren´t convinced. Go on or go back? Torment. Indecision.

We flipped a coin. The coin said go on.

THANK GOD.

We took the easy road. We weren´t happy about it, but that´s how it turned out, as the fork never appeared and we later found out where we´d missed it. We wanted to go over the mountain, but when the roads met again later, we heard that it was a killer ascent for a whole hour and then a killer descent. And did I mention it was HOT today?? We would´ve died. So, c´est la vie.

We had enough today anyway. The walk by the roadside was kind of miserable. There was little shade and almost no wind...but there were blessedly few cars and the road also followed a bubbling river the whole way, and the sound of the water was nice. The other thing I should be thankful for is that the road wound between the mountains on the valley floor, so today was rather flat. So it wasn´t a ruin of a day...we missed some gorgeous views, but we also missed the bragging rights for the high road.

The end of the day was nothing to write home about, though the many little towns we passed through were quaint, and we´ve seen some awesome, HUGE chestnut trees that just BEG you to climb them. Christa has been teaching me about every kind of tree we pass. (I also drilled her on Austrian history most of the afternoon, just to make the time pass and take my mind off my feet.)

My feet. My toe blisters are still holding, but I´m almost out of Compeed and tomorrow is Sunday, so everything will be closed. My left pinkie toe now has this weird yellow fold of loose skin where that monster blister was. It´s kind of gross. Ha ha...aren´t you glad I included that? Like my brother told me, the rest of my heel blisters have become callouses and no longer bother me...knock on wood. Would you believe that I´m in the FOURTH WEEK of this Camino and we´re all STILL getting blisters??

We´re getting more people who have just started, as we are now at about 169k from Santiago. People are getting more impressed with words like ¨St. Jean Pied-de-Port¨ and ¨23 days now.¨ Ha haaaaa....

Anyway. No big deal on missing the mountain climb today, because tomorrow is O Cebriero, the last hurdle on the way to Santiago...our last mountain. Another tough ascent, and another following that, and then a downhill the day after (we probably won´t make it off the mountain tomorrow). Good news: we´re hitting it first thing in the morning, when it´s still cool and we´re fresh. Bad news: this stomach thing won´t go away. It´s been coming in waves all day. I´m trying to drink water because God forbid I be dehydrated tomorrow for our last mountain (about which I´m actually more nervous than I was about the Pyrenees...figure that...naïvete?)...but what if it´s the water? It´s me and my Pepto pills against the world. I am NOT looking forward to this. I hope to God I sleep well tonight and feel better tomorrow...this is gonna be the last tough day we have, I think....

PS - the plan is to walk into Santiago on the morning of the 9th. Did I mention that already? Did I mention it´s only ONE WEEK AWAY FROM TODAY???

Sigh.

Maybe I´ll go back to St. Jean and just start again....

PPS - Found Yasmeen again here at the albergue in Ruitelán...she says Skip was turning the Villafranca bars upside down last night.... Would love to have seen him climb O Ceb today with a hangover.... ;)