We intentionally chose to walk our second Camino in a different season from the first.
Two years ago in autumn, the grain fields were either bare or golden yellow. The grapes were on the vines ready for harvesting or picking by passing pilgrims and wild berries were plentiful by the roadside.
This time, in spring, the fields were green with new plantings, and the vines were freshly pruned for new growth. So were the trees that lined the espolons of Burgos and Leon.
In spring, the country seemed full of life; the birds were chatty and the highly perched storks were at their nests which were deserted previously. Roses wild and cultivated, like the wild flowers, were in full bloom. In Galicia their scent even overpowered that of the fresh cow dung, which are always plentiful.
For walkers May was more comfortable but still warm in the blistering sun at midday but not as unbearable as in autumn.The Pyrenees was freezing cold and wet; we were actually fortunate as those who crossed over the day before and after were met with sleet and snow. Perhaps there isn't a good season there!
The most obvious change for pilgrims is the dramatic increase in their numbers. There are many now who have prebooked accommodations through travel companies that bulk reserve rooms, leaving limited choices for individuals like us unless we choose to stay in albergues where the "true pilgrims " stay; nothing wrong with that of course, as many would say.
An interesting part of the Camino is in meeting fellow walkers, exchanging stories and experiences - the Canadian banker who changed his job to retrain as a nurse; the Czech who worked for radio Free Europe thinking about his future; the mother and two young children walking for the Dad who just died; the father and son striving for a new bonding; the determined French woman on her 9th Camino, the young Japanese girl on her own with limited English (and Spanish ) and many, many more.
There were those driven by religion or spiritual causes; some strove with raw energy determined to finish without distractions.
Unfortunately we also saw many who ended up with injuries through lack of care or over enthusiasm. An education for everyone.
We walked into Sarria in glorious weather, which Galicia is never known for. For once we were lucky; two years ago it rained every single of the days we walked in this province and only stopped when we arrived.
Sarria is our final destination for our second Camino, which is rather strange because this is where many start on the walking pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, just more than 100km away. One needs only to walk from here to qualify for the "compostela" or certficate at the end.
We leave by train tomorrow for Madrid.
We complain often about the one particular challenge of the pilgrimage - that which relates to food. The breakfast served is often too light, the cuisine offered in the villages limited (sandwiches, potato tortillas, Spanish ham) and restaurants don't open till very late (usually not earlier than 8pm sometimes 9pm). It is often worse in Galicia where the sun is up till late this time of the year.
Still, we continue to learn, cope and discover. This may only be our second Camino but it's already our 4th trip to Spain, so we should know or have learnt! Soups are often available any time of the day when we asked and they are quite good. The unappealing blood and rice sausage turned out to be quite tasty , and when requested they would usually heat up the potato tortillas to make it more palatable.
At Triacastela, octopus was on the eonomical menu del diaz; perhaps the Spanish people have stopped being self concious about their exotic dishes and are now offering them to the pilgrims. Best of all many casa rurales (B&B) and small hotels have offered dinners at earlier times. Last night we had dinner at previously unheard time of 7 pm, a time that is very respectful of walkers who need to rest early for an early rise the next day.
Today we will walk our last 9 km to Sarria and end our Casino there.
We chose to take a route to Sarria that is different from our previous Camino, one that goes via Samos famous for its largest monastery in the western world.
The path to Sam's was typically Galician, winding path through forests and farms with trees covered with moss and creepers, evidence of high rainfall in the province. Unlike our previous though the sky was blue and the ground dry and even dusty.
The sight that greeted us as we scaled the last of the small hills was worth all the trouble - the grand St Julian monastery from above.
We were even more thrilled to find a conducted tour of the monastery in English for the bennefit of just two of us.
We discovered that the place we booked was actually another 4km on and run by someone who less English than Kay speaks Spanish. Thankfully the lady bar owner helped by phoning for us and soon a car was sent to bring us to the location.
Scaling Cebreiro, the 1300m peak is not too difficult for most people but it was certainly strenuous. It took us more than 3 hours not counting the two stops, one for a drink the other a bowl of Galician vegetable soup.
Just before reaching Cebreiro we crossed into Galicia province .
One pleasure of the Camino is the meeting of different people of different origins. There are occasional surprises when we meet people closer to home. A real surprise greeted us at Laguna village when we found the American lady in the next table had spent time at Macquarie Uni just down the road from us.
Another surprise greeted us at our accommodation near Triacastela (Cebreiro being fully booked ) when we found another couple there were practically our neighbours back in Sydney !
We travelled more than 150km to end up at Las Herrerias at the foot of O Cebreiro, a journey that would have taken us 10 days to walk at our leisurely pace. We had gone from a busy urban centre to a tranquil rural environment. We cut across the Montes de Leon (the mountains of Leon ), through mountains and deep valleys and bypassing the string of villages and towns like Astorga, Foncebadon and Rabanal that we walked through 2 years ago. The views were perhaps better from the bus given the higher elevation though of course they were only fleeting.
Beautiful Leon cathedral, wish l have my wide angle lens with me.
We arrived by bus from Sahagun after the driver pitied us and let us get on even though we did not prebook and prepay for our ticket; no one told us we needed to and we not know to ask. We did the honest thing by paying at the bus terminal on arrival.
The objective is to Herrerias tomorrow, a small village at the foot of a mountain range from where we would walk up to the top O Cebreiro requiring a climb of 800 m over 8 km.
Spain is on the western the time zone so even though it is still spring the sunset is late and twilight lingers on till around 10 pm which suits the local late dinner habits not so much for those who want to get to bed early for an early walking start
We have a few more kilometres to walk on the meseta, the length limited by the number of days we have left of our trip and the other items we still have on our to do list. (photo shows rest area on the meseta )
Buses don't stop anywhere near Calzadilla so we will walk till we hit a village along the main road possibly Terrillinos some 8km away. From there we will get a taxi to Sahagun, the regional centre with good train and bus services to Leon from where we will go on to Galicia.
Dramatic news in Leon few days ago - a prominent woman politician was shot dead.
We ventured off in the morning leaving our comfortable hotel set up in a beautifully restored monastery building onto perhaps the most remote part of the meseta. The air was crispy cold around 5 deg but soon we were exposed to the fierce sun on the shadeless track and grateful for the cool breeze that persisted.
We had a 17 km day so I was annoyed by the confusing stylised map that made us take the wrong way leaving Carrion and added another 1.5 to our day; it would have been worse if a local had not stopped his car in the middle of a highway to tell us that.
There is nothing commercial between Carrion and Calzadilla del La Cueza we had been warned, not even a fountain to fill our water bottle, but an entreprising ice cream vendor was strategically parked 7km down the road. We could not refuse the temptation even though it meant lowering our cool body even further; we would have much preferred a hot cup of coffee.
On the way into Castrojeriz yesterday we stopped by a small refugio set up in the ruins of an old convent for a cup of tea. Everything there (tea and accommodation) was "donativo" (by donation). We met up again with Greg and Maria, the Korean couple we first encountered the day before. We exchanged particulars; Greg impressed me with his knowledge of Chinese writing and his eagerness to stay in the place that had limited comfort !
We passed through Hontanas where we stayed on our first Camino and noticed that the pilgrim village had continued to boom with several new and quite stylish places for pilgrims.
Photo taken earlier near Hontanas.
We don't normally walk more than 20km but we did today to arrive at Castroheriz; we had to because we are now in a part of the meseta where villages are 10km apart. The sun was hot but luckily the air was cool.
Hornillos was totally full. Every bed was taken up. When we tried booking the owner told us he could put us in his mother's B&B in the next village Estepar 7 km away. We gratefully accepted .
A beautiful day for walking yesterday which was cool with overcast sky. At Rabe we met up with a couple of Aussies from Melbourne. The bar tender pointed out that there were Australia and Singapore currency notes pinned to a notice board, obviously contributed by pilgrims. Leaving Rabe, we had company from a flock of sheep and three sheepdogs.
The hot day today for our 14 km walk from Redecilla to Belorado was a reminder that we are walking through open country with little shade.
We are in beautiful Burgos revisiting after 2 years. Now in spring new leaves have appeared on the pruned row of trees on the espolon which, when we were here last, provided good shade with their full canopy
Vilamayor del Rio on the way from Redecilla to Belorado is not a village that many of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims going through each year would remember. "It's a one-horse town where the horse was shot" said the outspoken and opinionated South African lady sitting at a table in the nice restaurant café a couple of hundred metres away from the Camino route on the other side of the highway. Unless one deviates from the Camino there was absolutely no where to get a drink.
But that was not the only complaint that was aired. The rather stern manager / waiter received a string of comments in his absence. He was indeed an odd one who appeared to have taken a leaf out of customer service book from Fawlty Towers. He made sure all customers obey the rules for the place which were prominently displayed at the front door, including no backpacks, no walking poles, no shorts, no singlets, no removal of shoes etc all of which pilgrims are mostly to have with them or want to do.
The lady went on to complain about the lack of English probably forgetting that she was in Spain.
We were soon joined by an Aussie family group of a mother and two young children walking for the late father of the children who passed away last year. Remarkably the 13 year old boy walked the Camino with his father once before. There are many such stories on the Camino.
Santo Domingo is a two-tale town. The one about the chickens is too long to narrate here so it's best left to google. (Accompanying photo of the bird cage inthe cathedral). The story of Dominic who helped pilgrims in many ways including building a bridge and attained sainthood despite initially failing to be a monk, is more plausible.
On the Camino we often meet up again with people we came across earlier. In Santo Domingo we ran into the Italian lady who was nursing a painful foot back in Logrono and who obviously recovered well. And how excited we were when we met up with Cody and Kristy in Redecilla whom we knew from the Sydney pilgrims group!
Today we resumed our walk having rested and recovered, but just a gentle 11km. We are walking in a different season and the landscape looked quite different from the last time, all green with young unripened grain crops and blood-red poppies popping out everywhere on the roadside (is that why they are called poppies ?) The cooler weather made walking much easier than last time.
Not many pilgrims complain about the food in Spain but we always do after a few days in the villages and provincial cities; we are spoilt by multicultural Sydney and Singapore no doubt.
We can live with pinchos for lunch but it seems every bar is offering the same half-dozen choices - tortilla, jamon, boccadilos perhaps drowned in mayonnaise or olive oil. You want anything else you have to wait till after 8 pm or later.
Bilbao is a city that attracts perhaps millions of visitors each year but it is still hard to find a full meal serving place at lunch time let alone one serving non Iberian cuisine. We spotted a Chinese restaurant in town; like the others they open in the evening after 8 pm.
Imagine our excitement when we got to Santo Domingo, a tiny village by comparison to Bilbao, and found not one but several places serving full meals in the middle of the day including several showing off "2 Forks" signs. We jumped immediately into one and enjoyed the 11 euros menu del diaz of fish soup (Kay had salad), lamb stew (meat balls), ice cream and drinks. Obviously the large number of pilgrims have made an Impact here; pilgrims have their special needs, partly because they need to go to bed early and partly because they come from places with less rigid cuisine style and eating schedule.
This morning was spent at the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum which we had heard so much about. We particularly enjoyed The Clock, a video montage of thousands of movie clips each containing a scene with an indication of time on a time device such that the entire screening act as a real time clock. It was indeed worth every minute of our time there.
We also explored Bilbao's old town including the Camino route passing through there. Bilbao is situated on a different Camino route from the Camino Frances.
We end up spending 3 nights in Logrono for Kay to recover from her cold and for me to overcome the fatigue that lingered on ever since the Pyrenees. Perhaps there was a touch of jetlag as well.
Logrono was a good spot to rest in spring though the seeds from trees float down incessantly like snowflakes and collecting in drifts everywhere gave me some hayfever.
We met up again with some pilgrims we encountered earlier including an Italian lady we shared an albergue room with at Zubiri. Unfortunately she was forced to rest with a foot injury. We are beginning to hear of many such stories now that we are more than 100 km down the track.
By the 3rd day we had rested enough to want to to a lengthy walk so we explored the parks on the banks of the Ebro River and walked the Camino right across the city to its southwestern edge at the railway bridge and back. We had done this stretch previously but we then did it in the dark before dawn broke to avoid the then summer heat. Yesterday we had a good look at suburbia alive.
While resting, a cursory look at a map of Spain gave us a sudden realisation that Bilbao, a side trip objective, is just to the north of us in Logrono. We took a quick decision to take a trip there from Logrono instead of venturing forth on the Camino for the time being.
There are all kinds of "perigrinos" or "pilgrims". The traditional walkers who intend to walk every metre of the way seem now to be overwhelmingly outnumbered by the touristy kind who gets transported to and from sections walking little or none at all. Hotels with private facilities are crowded or full.
Purists would surely shake their heads disapproval but who is to say which kind of pilgrims is the true one?
When we found that we would be in Logrono on a Sunday we were disappointed thinking that everything will be dead. What a pleasant surprise when we found cafés open and chocolate and patisserie shops as well. What's more the sky was blue and the sun shining brightly.
Things are cheap; we had three dishes of pinchos two coffees and a soft drink for 8€ or less than 11 aussie.
We learn something new each time we come to Spain. Only peligrinos order café con leche after breakfast. It's café cortado - with less milk.
We sat for a few minutes through a Spanish church service at the main cathedral and listened to the ringing of its bells, which to a ringer of the Engish version like myself sounded rather monotonic.
Beyond Puente la reina the Camino cuts across the richest wine producing regions of Spain. We had few incentives to redo the walk across rolling hills and vineyards even though they are truly beautiful. Kay, still nursing a cold, proceeded to Logrono while I walked the 7 odd km from Los Arcos to Torres del Rio with the intention of taking a good look at the 12th century Knight Templar church there. The terrain was quite flat all the way bar the steep climb to the village but I forgot the one idiosyncrasy of Spain by arriving during the siesta time and could only admire it from the outside. Even old churches need a rest. That was still better than our previous Camino when I walked right past it.
Zariquiegui albergue was disappointing in its lack of maintenance, the place had deteriorated since our last stay. The saving grace was the company, the Canadian - South Africans who walked the same leisurely place and hence we met again, and the father and son pair who slowed to allow the younger's feet to recover.
Kay had a mild cold, so decided to skip the Alto de Person to proceed directly to Eunate with mechanical propulsion
while I pushed on by foot. The alto climb wasn't too difficult even though we are 2 years older! I walked on to Eunate, a diversion just to view the remarkable 12th century Santa Maria Romanesque round church, one we missed the previous time.
I caught up with Kay at Obanos from where it was just a short 2km stroll to Puente La Reina, the Queen's bridge.
