Housekeeping tip for the day: if you come to Spain to walk the Camino you really should schedule at least a day or two to adjust your body’s biorhythms to the new time zone. We were both out like proverbial lights and fast asleep by shortly after midnight but I was wide awake at 3:30 AM and Hannah joined me at 4 so after tossing and turning for a while, we decided to set out early. We quietly closed the front door of the albergue at 6:30 AM and were on the Camino at sunrise. And it was kind of nasty, about 6 degrees Celsius (low 40’s F), with an increasingly cold wind and at times misting rain. My hands were really cold and hurting and just as I was berating myself for not having thought to bring gloves for a summer walk on the Camino, Hannah said to me, “Dad, do we have any gloves?” I ignored her impertinence as we slogged through and around small rivers of water that were flowing downhill against us and steadily but cautiously ascended to Cruz de Fiero.
We made it to Manjarin and visited with Tomas the modern Knight Hospitaler and single inhabitant of the place. I told him about Hannah’s recent graduation and he addressed her directly in Spanish (while I translated) telling her with the certainty of a mystic reading Tarot cards that “conditions might seem foreboding, that she would experience physical and spiritual challenges but that she should persevere and remain optimistic because there were brighter days ahead.”
We continued the ascent to the highest point at Alto Altar (where I caught the taxi last time) and decided we were game to give the steep descent down to El Acebo a go. Having been admonished by Brierly, that sprained ankles, pulled muscles and falls are more likely to occur going down than up, we proceeded super cautiously taking over an hour to descend a distance of no more than a few kilometers. At El Acebo we shared a plate of fried eggs and potatoes and arranged for the taxi to pick us up further down the road at Riego de Ambros. El Acebo and Riego are both picturesque tiny villages that seem to literally hang on the hill side. I was really happy to walk down through them. A new and more uplifting experience compared with the last time around. (2017’s Episode 10)
At that point Hannah had set her new personal one day walking record of close to 14 miles which is quite a neat feat on her sleep deprived feet. We were wet, sweaty and tired not to mention a bit muddy and so happy to get in the taxi for the ride to Ponferrada. That is until the maniac taxi driver careened down the narrow twisting road at breakneck speed. We tightened our seatbelts and in response to the look of terror in Hannah’s eyes, I addressed the driver in the hope of getting him to slow down, “mucha curva no?” He literally turned around and looked me directly in the eye while steering blindly through the curves telling me, “si pero yo estoy acostumbrado” (yea but I’m used to them). We however weren’t “acostumbrado” and by the time we got to Ponferrada we were both dizzy and wishing we had opted to walk the whole way.
We showered changed into clean dry clothes and toured the town, the beautiful clock tower and the restored 12th Century Knights Templar Castle and had a really great almost haute cuisine type Menu Peregrino at a place in the square called 7 Sillas. Hannah’s thinly sliced egg plant starter and salmon main were amazing but paled by comparison with my langostine and rice stuffed peppers.
Tomorrow it’s a 24 km walk with not much up or down to Villafranca del Bierzo through the magnificent vineyards of the Bierzo region. And what do you know, checking the forecast for the next few days, it seems that Tomas’s foretelling of the future has quickly been proven to be prophetic, the weather has changed and there are indeed “brighter days ahead.”
Thank you Tomas
Buen Camino
