14/06/2024 – Walking the walk 16

Day 30 - We took the gentle, and spectacular stroll from Las Herrerias to O Cebreiro. We treated it as a rest day. At only 8km in total, even the 600m climb seemed simply a chance to enjoy different microclimates, from green, damp forest path to sunny ridge top trail with striking views, through hamlets and farms perched on rare flat ground.

We passed into Galicia, the final 100 miles (160km) of our trek. O Cebreiro is a non-pilgrim tourist destination, with a discrete coach park and very indiscreet trade in trinkets, souvenirs. Almost derelict in the 1970s, the local priest waged a campaign to restore the church and the traditional “palloza” stone round houses. It has become a centre piece of Galician tourism; a gem preserving culture with a through line from the Neolithic. The extraordinary archaeological finds at Orkney feel entirely of this place. We are lucky enough to have one of the +/-30 rooms (plus 25 hostel beds) available here. It’s chilly at 1,300m, but a really special treat.

In Las Herrerias we stayed in a charming 8-room hostel/pub run by a mother-daughter team. The daughter did front of house and we got on well. The bar had a TV playing. She listened to me translate the news and to us doing wildly inaccurate “voiceover” for the VERY Latin soap opera ,“War of Roses”, as well as taking our various orders/questions. Right at the end of our 28-hour stay, it occurred to her to ask me “do you speak Spanish?” I suppose I do, “pocito, pocito”!

Day 31 - Today was actually fun. It turns out that on occasion our idea of fun does encompass marching through fog, rain, wind for several hours at altitude (over 1,200m) getting progressively wetter, colder despite our rain gear. There were few pilgrims on the mountain route, for common sense reasons (which we ignored!). Those who were, smocked in plastic, battened down, were definitely in “trudge” mode. That was a shame because it was actually quite exhilarating- and certainly splendid when it stopped.

About 2 hours in, we strode up behind a slow-moving figure. We were positioning ourselves for overtaking with the usual cheery “Buen Camino”, when he turned, with a look of desperation: “have you any food?” Taken aback by this non-traditional greeting, it took a moment to process. We were able to dig half a bar of chocolate from the bottom of my pack. He was a big man with a big pack half way up a big hill, in dire need of a reason to go on…. We saw him an hour or so later, through the window of a cafe at which we made an emergency war,-up/dry-off stop He looked greatly improved.

As we descended, the weather improved. We strolled into our (very rudimentary) accommodation in Triacastela in good spirits and one heck of an appetite. The nearby hotel had a splendid kitchen, with enormous portions. We didn’t leave a scrap!