Day 34. April 12, 2017. Lubian to A Gudina. 22 kms

My object all sublime

I shall achieve in time

To let the punishment fit the crime,

The punishment fit the crime.

 

I set out early for it was another long walk with a big climb. The light is just magical in the mornings.

 

The road led down to the very bottom of a river valley and on to a rough track. At times the track was virtually a creek and I was walking along the middle on massive stones.

I never thought I would enjoy a thousand-foot climb. It was rugged and varied, as the path wound its way around the contours of the valley up to the pass. Sometimes the path had cut deep into the ground and had become a tunnel filled in with a canope of shrubs. 

 

Sometimes the heather leaned in to catch the sunlight.

 

But it was endurable because it was winding and varied, and I was fresh. My advice to anybody following this route is to plan your itinerary so that you spend nights at Requiejo and Lubian and make these great climbs in the morning when you are fresh.

I must say that my joy tuned to modified rapture when I reached the upper rocky slopes where the twists and turns went on forever. However, I felt quite exulted when I finally reached the summit and looked down onto Galicia.

I have something to add to my answer to the question posed by John the Canadian several weeks ago in a bar when he asked what really pisses me off.

Well, it is young Dutch girls who spend 20 minutes in the only bathroom in the hostel with the rest of us desperate to get in.

She races along, the Dutch girl. I sent out first in the morning, but soon she came barreling up behind me and disappeared in the distance. Later in the day in Galicia, I was standing looking at a map and she came up behind me again. "How did I get in front of you?" I asked. Visibly frustrated she replied, "I got lost and spent an hour trying to find my way." "Too bad," I said, but I couldn't help thinking, it's beacause you spent so much time in the bathroom. 

In the afternoon, I walked downhill through gentle Galician valleys and then up and over undulating uplands of rocks and heather and gorse, not unlike the Yorkshire moors. I half expected to surmount a rise and come upon Wuthering Heights. 

 

I am staying tonight at the big municipal hostel at A Gudina.