Camino Invierno: 4. O Barco de Valdeorras to A Rúa de Valdeorras. 13 kms

Why should our shells point the same way as theirs?

We are proud Galicians, and mind our own affairs.

Once you cross our border, and head towards the west

It’s the rays, and not the head, that send you on your quest.

But now that you mention it, we’re  not so sure ourselves. 

What the bloody hell! We’ll leave it to the elves.

I ran into Carlos at the bar this morning. “Easy day, today,” he said. “Only 12 kms.” “Yes,” I said. “But I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. 27 kms and hilly. “Ah,” he said, “That’s tomorrow. Worry about it then.” That’s the right philosophy.

There are at least two more pilgrims on the road. One is a Camino Bragger. “I’ve done seven caminos,” he says, to anyone who will listen. He must be boring the hell out of his travelling companion. Someone once asked me, rhetorically ,in a bar on the Camino, “How many caminos do you have to do?”

I am impressed with these hostals am staying at. They are really one-star hotels. Last night’s, the Hostal Mayo, at 25€, was a room with twin beds and a bathroom, inside this time, on the fifth floor, with a skylight.

One frustrating thing is the pair of keys they give you, one for the room and one for the building. Copies of copies have been made that sometimes they stick. And they are indistinguishable, one from the other, so invariably, you always try to open your bedroom with the building key first, and vice-versa. 

A fairly gentle climb out of town this morning. A kilometre on, I passed the Albergue de Xagoaza. Looked nice.

There is no consistency in the shells: sometimes the head, sometimes the rays point towards Santiago. These are two signs on the official Galicia pillars.

Nor are the fig trees aren’t being consistent. Some offer me delicious tasty fruit. Some bear only shrivelled up lumps. Others display only bare branches.

Happiness is walking gently downhill, vines on one side, trees on the other, the sun coming up behind me, the occasional chirping of the birds, not like spring, of course, a bit of a haze in the air, a dog barking in the distance, water gurgling somewhere down a trough, and a man coming towards me, his pooch trotting behind, pausing, having a sniff, taking a pee, and then scrambling to catch up. Misery? I’ll probably let you know tomorrow.

All in all, an easy walk, along the river, on one side of the N536 or the other, with a detour up to Vilamartin for a coffee.

I am staying at the Hostal Mistal. Large room, two beds and bathroom. 29€. My poles are doing double duty supporting my washing.

Camino Invierno: 3. Puente de Domingo Flórez to O Barco de Valdeorras. 20 kms

A distant sound from across the lake.

Get up, get up, for heaven’s sake.

This is your warning, get out of bed.

We are here to bring your daily bread.

I have been asked about other pilgrims on the way. Well, there’s the Swiss couple that I met again last night at the hotel. The Camino is in their blood, particularly hers. Ruth met Manfred on the Via de la Plata 15 years ago. They had walked their separate ways before that. He is German. She is German Swiss. They speak German together which I don’t understand. She speaks French to me which he doesn’t understand, and he speaks English to me which she doesn’t understand. They both speak Spanish with the locals, which I don’t understand, but they interpret for me, which is very helpful. A babel of tongues!

I ate breakfast this morning at the bar of the hostel, just a coffe and croissant, no tortilla. The fellow at the next table was dunking his croissant in his coffee, but it wasn’t that bad. The Spanish version is somewhat heavier than the French and a little greasy.

There is lots of accommodation for pilgrims in this town. I passed an albergue as I came in but because I had booked at Hostal la Torre I continued to the other side of town. I was a little apprehensive  when I checked in, for the girl told me that the bathroom was outside. “Outside?” I said.  “Yes, let me show you.” So she took me up to a very nice little room with a balcony for €22, and then pointed across the hall to the bathroom. The bathroom was outside the bedroom. She was very friendly and helpful. They usually are after they look at my passport. This could be for one of two reasons. 

I was sluggish this morning, and found it difficult to leave. Last night at supper, Ruth had mentioned seeing a couple wheeling a baby. I was surprised because I was sure that the Swedish couple were continuing on the Francés. However, as I left town, I saw them approaching down another street, I waited, but no, it was another couple wheeling a baby and in a regular pram or stroller, not a cart. So there are three more pilgrims on this route.

I left town via a little winding road, half urban, half rural. A cock crew and a chainsaw snarled in the distance. A man was working in his garden. Tomatoes and huge cabbage plants. A bit of going around in circles and then I passed an ugly concrete buttress supporting the municipal water supply. A fire had been through these hills.

I saw from a marker that I was now in Galicia, but strangely the shell hadn’t turned the other way. I was precisely 228.823 km from Santiago. But then after a bit of a bugger of a climb I passed another marker and this time the shell was oriented the Galician way, with the rays towards Santiago. I was now 221 metres closer to Santiago. Stones were placed most artistically atop the pillar. I imagined the pilgrim who was ignorant of the Galician change of direction going up and down the hill like an automaton.

I sat on a bench and rested for a moment looking at this wonderful view. But the sun was rising over the hill. Time to get a move on!

I walked along beside the lake and heard the warning blast of the delivery van.

All over Spain and France in little villages, which have lost their bakeries and other shops, vans drive through at a certain time each day bringing necessities. It’s sad that the bars and bakeries have gone. I remember chatting with an old man in a fairly large village in France. Over there, he pointed, was my boulangerie and on that corner, another one.

I was thinking about the plight of these little villages as I walked through the very crooked street of Pumarez when I heard a shout from the  bedroom window above me. She pointed in the right direction, not the street I had taken. I walked on.

A lady approached me, wearing what I thought was a cross around her neck, but no, it was a bunch of house keys, not the key to the kingdom of heaven.

This was such a lovely walk. I sang a verse from Oklahoma, but then across the river I could see an ugly rumbling factory, with forklifts crawling about and the beeping horns of trucks backing up. I’m not sure what they were making but I could see piles of slate.

Another thundering factory, and then I came to the end of the valley and climbed up and over. There were benches along the way inviting me to sit, but I could see the town of Sobradelo in front of me and was anxious for my hobbit’s second breakfast, tortilla and a coffee.

Not so far now. On to the next village, where I crossed the magnificent  Ponte de Éntoma, which a friendly inhabitant told me was a Roman bridge on a via Romana between Madrid and Ourense, not a major Roman road, but a via segunda. Look at the slate in the arch!

And then, somehow I missed a turn, but friendly ladies assured me that I was going the right way along the highway.

There was a glorious scent in the air. I wish I could identify it. 

And then I could see O Barco ahead of me. I walked quite a distance through this large town to find a room at the Hostal Mayo. As I sat outside enjoying my pint, three other pilgrims arrived, including Carlos, who had walked from Las Medulas after spending two days there exploring the mines.

Camino Invierno 2. Borrenes to Puente de Domingo Flores. 19 kms

It seems rather sad that this blogger’ll

Fill up his page with this doggerel.

But it helps pass the time

As he continues to climb,

In fact, it’s more aptly called sloggerel.

Those of you new to the blog, may be wondering about the bits of doggerel that appear every so often. (Does he think he is a poet?) No, let me explain.

I really don’t like walking, I mean the act of walking. I like everything around me when I walk , the birds and the trees and the animals and the tinkling sound of cow bells. But sometimes when there’s nothing to divert me, I compose a bit of verse to pass the time. I dictate my thoughts to the phone. This little bit of rambling, for example, has got me a little way up a hill.

Yesterday, another pilgrim couple arrived at the hotel and we had dinner together. They were Camino veterans both. Interestingly, he had walked the Francés in the same month as I, nineteen years ago. We might have passed each other on the Way.

We ate a magnificent garlic soup and recalled the priest at a monastery just before León who used to make the soup for the pilgrims. After supper he would make the pilgrims say or sing something about their own country. I remember that I sang Waltzing Matilda.

Early in the morning, I left the hotel walked along the road for a kilometre and then off on a track beside a dried up creek bed. Beside me, the leaves of the poplars beside me were turning yellow and I could see pine trees high above me on a ridge. This is a very peaceful walk.

A whiff of woodsmoke in the air,

A humble hearth where people care.,

A little cabin in the wood

Where love abides and all is good.

And then a short climb over a hill,  down into the next valley, and then up again to the road, a short stretch along the highway, and then a long, long, not-so-gentle climb out of the valley and up to the pass ahead of me, marked on one side by a massive rocky promontory looking a little like something out of Lord of the Rings.

I arrived at Las Medulas. Feeling a little guilty about taking a shortcut yesterday, although I couldn’t possibly have managed the climb, I decided to visit the Roman mines. Even although it entailed a three-kilometre detour. 

The rocky promontory I had seen, turned out to be one of a series of conical mounds of red conglomerate containing alluvial layers that the Romans had mined for gold. To get at these layers the Romans would mine, in the medieval sense of the word, the layers above, causing them to collapse. (I got this information from the English translation on an information panel). I wondered how  many miners had lost their lives in this dangerous process. They were probably slaves.

The Latin expression for this destructive process was ruina montium, the ruin of the mountain. I suppose the modern equivalent of this ancient process is open cut mining.

The path leading up to the conical hills was lined with chestnuts, some with massive gnarled trunks. What a character of a tree is the chestnut!

Leaving Las Medulas I continued to gently climb for one and a half kilometers, and then it was (almost) downhill all the way.

Over the hill and round the bend, and opening up before me was a wide, deep valley, with lots of pine forest and roads striking out uphill. I hoped that none of them was mine.

I followed a minor road that clung to the side of the hill,  and then wound down into the  valley with pine plantations on either side.

I have to say the trail was well marked today with concrete markers, even along the  long stretches where it wasn’t  really necessary. Little piles of stones on top told me that pilgrims had gone before me, and at one place someone had constructed a stone heart on the trail. The only time I nearly went astray was earlier in the day when a car was blocking a marker. Fortunately, a kind lady put me right or I might still be walking in the wrong direction.

At last, I reached the floor of the valley, and walked towards the town along a leafy lane with just a gentle breeze in my face. And then, just to spite me, the track took a steep little climb over a hillock and then down into the village. And in the distance, I saw my first gum trees. 

Borrenes. A Bonus Post for Loyal Readers

This is a bonus post, for I woke up during the night and couldn’t get back to the sleep. Too much wine at dinner perhaps. By the way, I’ve been having terrible problems with Google Blogger, too tedious to describe. Some of you got a premature post yesterday, with errors. I apologize.

Camino de Papel Higienico

On the Camino de Papel Higienico

I suppose if you have  to, you’ve gotta go

But when you can’t find a dunny or bog,

Do as you’d do for Rover, your dog, 

Carry a poo-bag and pick up your paper

You will earn days off Purg. for this caper.

The road to hell may be lined with good intentions, but the road to Santiago is lined with paper.

It’s a very, very serious problem. Whereever the path through the woods widens ever so slightly, pilgrims have relieved themselves. Tissue and toilet paper line the trail, evident at every slight widening of the path, and at any clearing just off the path you will see it covering almost every inch of the ground. Sometimes it’s hooked on the bushes at the side of the trail. This is another reason I was happy to take the road less travelled by.

I miss some of the people I met on the Camino Francés . We all know that one of the joys of the Camino is meeting up with the same people, often unexpectedly, again and again.

I kept running into the young Swedish couple wheeling their baby. I often thought about them as I gingerly inched my way down treacherous slopes. They told me that when they could wheel their carriage, he would carry it, and she would carry the baby. I said that it was a pity he wouldn’t remember his first Camino, and they said they would tell him about it, and it would become a memory.

I miss the German lady with her dog and her new friend Danielle from Portland, Oregon. But I don’t miss the man from Alaska. I don’t think I told you about him.

At supper, at the hotel a couple of nights ago,I was placed in a group who had already started eating. They didn’t open a conversation, so I ventured, “Where are you from?” 

“I’m from Alaska,” said the man next to me. “Alaskan born and bred.” 

“0h,” I replied, “I’m from further south. Victoria, Canada.”

“Pity you didn’t open the border sooner,” he said, seeming to hold me personally responsible for the Canadian government’s policy of trying to restrict the entry of potential Covid carriers. And then his neighbour’s typically European thin steak arrived. “Bet that’s not what your used to,” he said. And then he dismissed a couple who were leaving the table with a tired don’t-do-anything-I-wouldn’t-do kind of joke. Something about bail money. I thought he must have been travelling in a coach, but no, I found out the next morning he was walking the Camino.

By contrast, one of my roomies in the dorm was a very young Italian lad, Luca (I don’t thing I’m spelling that right). Luca was effusive in his appreciation of the cross-cultural aspect of the Camino. “I meet so many people,” he said, “from different cultures, and they respect me, and I respect them.”

Camino Invierno: 1. Ponferrada to Borrenes. 18 kms.

 

Old implements put to good use

I took the road less travelled by (Frost)

I left Ponferrada by the way I came in, but this time I crossed the railway line by a zigzag of a foot bridge, then over the river by a lovely stone bridge, and then west along the river.

Such peace! Such calm! Not the constant click clack of the poles of the pilgrim behind or the shout of the cyclist to get out of the way, but the crowing of the rooster and the chirping of the birds celebrating the dawn. I walk under a majestic weeping willow, my favourite tree, I think, that reminds me of happy days in a beer garden.

Now the pavement ends, and I continue on a stony road, and leave the river as the road climbs gently up and around the hill. And then a not-so-gentle climb until I look behind, and Ponferrada is laid out before me, an ugly mass of apartment buildings, except for the cathedral which pokes its head above them.

(A Gentle Climb is one where you can still walk reasonably normally. A Not-So-Gentle Climb is one where you have to push yourself up with your poles. A Bugger of a Climb is one where you count your steps in twenties, and rest every hundred steps.)

Sweeping ahead of me is a long range of mountains, which I will surely have to cross.

The way is quite well marked, every so often by a concrete pillar with the shell, and the yellow arrow, not on every tree or wall perhaps, like the Camino Francés in places, but enough to get by.

Six kilometres on, down through the deepest canopied tunnel I have ever passed through, across a stone bridge over the Rio Oza to the village of Toral de Merayo. I enter a bar for a coffee where on the screen is not the typical Spanish talk or game show, but a kids’ cartoon to the tune of American Pie.

Why do the Spanish shout in every bar, even in a quiet village in the morning? But then I notice the beers on the bar and the shots of grappa.

Out of the village and up a stony track behind an old man, pushing his wife on a wheelchair, and then I take off to the right across a field and through an orchard. I continue to climb, through a vineyard and over a hill. I couldn’t refrain from stealing the odd grape, but then I remembered what I had seen on the Camino some years ago.

One day a fog came down upon the vine

And caught the budding insects in their prime.

While we, quite unaware, consume our wine

And stunted trees bear witness to the crime.

I come down to the village of Villalibre de la Jurisdicció (interesting name) and walk along the road for a bit, helping myself to some delicious figs, but then realize that they too may be sprayed, and on to Prianza del Bierzo where I take my rest on a bench. I watch a dog across the street and he watches me. I would like to pat him, but I’ve made that mistake before. Let sleeping dogs lie. I meet the first pilgrim of the day, Carlos, who passes by rather rapidly. He is going up to Villavieja, but not me. It’s about a thousand feet up.

And then, a not-so-gentle climb out of the village, and a bit of a bugger of a climb up to the main road. Up and along a winding highway that loops around until it meets a road coming down from Villavieja, and then blessed relief, a sign, pointing down a minor road and saying Borrenes, 1.5 km. 

I am staying in the Cornatel Medulas Hotel, comparatively luxurious accommodation for a change.

O lonely stump

That was once

A tree all green!

What hast thou seen?

No doubt the rump

Of roving hordes 

Of infidels with swords,

And wars internecine 

6. El Acebo de San Miguel to Ponferrada. 18 kms

 

The Last Autumnal Crocus

They poke their heads up on the Pilgrims’ Way,

The last autumnal crocus. One chance have they

To live, and breathe, and see the light of day,

Before the pilgrim treads them in the clay.

Ever since I read the line in one of Wordsworth’s poems I have been fascinated by this game little flower which pokes its head above the ground and lives but a short time if it’s lucky. I remember seeing them on the hospitales route on the Primitivo, high up in hills, struggling to stand upright against the wind, before being blown over. I’ve been noticing them along the sides of the trail on this walk as well, but this morning I saw them growing on the path itself in the very dirt. They were not long for this world.

Yesterday might’ve been the last post you would’ve had to read, had I not stopped a couple of hundred yards beyond the village to take off my jacket and pack it. I noticed that my iPad was not there. I returned to my room at the albergue where the lads were still sleeping. Out of consideration for them, I had not turned on the main light to the room when I arose this morning, and consequently didn’t see it on the bunk above. Now had I remembered to say my mnemonic, I would have checked.

Please, God. Where am I? Help a lonely traveller.

It was a fairly easy day, mostly downhill, but treacherous at times. In one part, I inched my way down a very treacherous slope, not scree this time, but dirt, worn smooth by pilgrims’ feet.

Halfway down the hill was one of those places that you wished you’d stayed in. Molinaseca has been voted one of the most beautiful villages in Spain. I crossed over the Roman bridge into a slightly winding street with stone buildings on each side, mostly devoted to pilgrim habitation and restauration. And I saw a sign for the breakfast I wished I’d had: “Two eggs, bacon and baked beans”

Just after Molinseca, as the path followed the road downhill, a group of Spanish cyclists rode by, and one of them stopped and reached up to grab a bunch of grapes from a vine by the side of the road. I was amused, and was calculating whether the bunch lay inside or outside the imaginary property line which extended up into the sky. I thought no more of it, and walked by, but five minutes later, the cyclist came up behind me, stopped, and gave me a bunch of grapes. So once again I quote Wordsworth, and his line that sums up the spirit of the Camino:

[Those] little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love

The path to Ponferrada follows the highway, a long, dull urban approach to what seems an unattractive city from across the valley: just an extensive panamara a of apartment buildings. But then, of course, when you arrive, there is always the old city.

I am installed in a seven bunk room at the Hostel Guiana. Who should be there but the German trio from Rabanal. This time the daughter didn’t have to surrender her lower bunk to me. I had been already assigned the single bunk in the room.

I have not yet decided whether to continue on the Camino Francés, with its hordes of pilgrims, but shorter distances, or the less travelled Camino Invierno, with its uncertain accommodation.

 My Mnemonic

My forgetfulness is chronic

So I made up a mnemonic 

To help me to remember what to bring.

But I find it quite ironic,

And some would say, moronic,

That I forget to say the bloody thing.

5. Rabinal del Camino to El Acebo de San Miguel. 18 kms

 

The equalizer

A delicate device, much too delicate to detail,

That matches the facility enjoyed by every male.

For every female pilgrim, caught short upon the trail,

Make no mistake about it, this is the holy grail.

I booked ahead for the first time today. It’s a shame, but I just can’t take the chance of getting stuck. When I first walked this Camino there was no booking at all. No private albergues, just the odd monastery and the municipals. And these weren’t always the most hospitable either. I remember the old, former  two-classroom school, adapted as an albergue, men on one side, women on the other, one loo for each, and a primitive kitchen in the middle, where a cockroach (🪳) popped out of the plughole and said, “I live here.”

At breakfast this morning I heard familiar tones from a neighbouring table and thought, What is he doing here? From Downing Street to Rabanal? But no, instead of the golden locks, a bald pate. Just a posh Pom.

As I left the village a cock crew. I began a long climb upwards. And what a climb!

On the road below, I saw the Camino van  carrying the luggage of the packless pilgrims who were passing me by. I am a purist, but today I envied them.

Half way up, I passed a lady standing up against a bush with her back to me. What was she doing, I wondered. Then I realized. She was using a device that allows a lady to remain standing. Rather indelicate to mention it, I know, but I do so only to illustrate the wide range of gadgetry available to the pilgrim. I refrained from saying, “Buen Camino”. But I’m sure that she said, like Francisco,

For this relief, much thanks.

And still I climbed, until at last, just a few hundred yards from the top, I reached the little village of Foncebadon and a welcoming bar where I had a coffee and a piece of real, homemade tortilla. Delicious! Also here were the German lady, Rona, and her dog, whom I first met just outside of León, and Danielle, from the albergue on my first night out of León.

At an earlier meeting, they had asked me how old I was, and when I told them, they asked if they could take my picture. I believe that I have achieved a certain fame as an Aged Curiosity. They always ask how I’m going. I think they’re a bit concerned that I may not make it.

Danielle had visited a famous masseuse in Rabanal. During the massage, the masseuse had detected a great sadness within and  lifted it from her. She was quite overcome by this mystical experience. It wouldn’t have happened to me, but I believe it happened to her. I am a sceptical sceptic. Danielle lives in Portland, Oregon. She must have heard my son-in-law play bass.

This is a journey of such extremes. There are moments of suffering when I say, like Jack Hawkins in that famous film, “Madness, absolute madness,” and then there there are moments of joy when I sit and relax, and look around at these magnificent hills, even if they are marred somewhat by the wind turbines and the transmission lines, but then again, we have to have something to drive the coffee machines, don’t we?

Another kilometre up, and then the Cruz de Ferro, where pilgrims deposit the stones they have brought with them. I remember walking up a steep slope to deposit my stone 19 years ago, and now the mound of stones is no taller than I remember, but much, much broader. Somewhere under there was my stone. I deposited another one today, carried not from home, but just a few hundred yards away, and then sat for some time in silent contemplation, reluctant to move on. And many others were sitting in silence as well.

How many millions of stones and every one a pilgrim! A humbling experience.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

And then down a gentle slope to Manjarin where pilgrims were gathering around a coffee stand, and past the famous refugio, which years ago, the authorities had tried to close down because there were no facilities at all. My Aussie mate George and I had entered to the strains of the Hallelujah Chorus, and I wondered whether this was my Damascene moment on the road to Santiago, but as I waited for the following aria, the chorus began again. The bugger had been playing it all day on a circular tape. It wasn’t a sign from heaven after all.

 And then I was climbing again, and there, ahead, must be the summit, next to the cell tower, for as Edna Everage screeched about Catholic Churches, “They always get the best positions.”

But like every summit, it was always just around the next bend. Eventually, I rounded the cell tower, and after another slight climb of a few hundred yards, I began to descend.

It was on this descent down a steep slope, rather perilous at times, that George and I had encountered an elderly Australian lady who talked and talked. Not as much as the Irishman, but enough that we had to make excuses and escape. She told us that her children had sent her on the Camino, and we understood why.

I could see Ponferrada in the distance, in a valley, and halfway down the slope I arrived at my destination, another Camino village, El Acebo de San Miguel. I am staying at Albergue la Casa Peregrino, a misleading name, and a rather new phenomenon, pilgrim quarters attached to a spar. I am sleeping in a dorm, but enjoying the rather luxurious facilities. I sit here overlooking the hills I have walked over today. This was a great day!