I was woken this morning quite late by Christian, who was very confused as to why I had decided to sleep outside! It was half past 7 already and Christian didn’t want to hang around waiting for me so went on ahead. I had slept outside as it was a completely clear sky and it looked amazing so, safe in the grounds of the albergue I rolled out my mat and sleeping bag and fell asleep looking at the stars.
Once I had sorted myself out I said goodbye to the albergue staff and headed off through the town. I somehow followed the wrong arrows and took the ‘alternative route’. No arrows are really the ‘wrong’ arrows it’s just that I had wanted to go the scenic route but instead ended up walking for almost 19kms along a main road which gets pretty boring! But, on the positive side, it meant that while I was sat having a beer in La Faba, Christian turned up! He was amazed and confused at how I could possibly have got ahead of him but we looked at our routes and he went a route that was 2kms longer than mine and he had also stopped earlier for a drink so it’s possible that I passed him while he was in the bar. We were both pleased to see each other and enjoyed a couple of beers together before continuing on our way.
We had a good afternoon and laughed a lot on our way up the mountain to O’Cebreiro. I didn’t realise how many mountains there were in Spain but it seems like just for a laugh, someone put them all in the way of the Camino so that tired pilgrims have no choice but to climb them! The highest point of the day was 4297 feet! I’m not looking forward to the decent tomorrow as that’s when my knee hurts again but it will be nice to get down onto Some flat level terrain; I will miss the amazing views though.
So, after a very long day having covered just over 30kms and climbing some very steep mountains again we are looking forward to an easier day tomorrow. We are meeting in the village centre at 7am for breakfast before heading off to begin our decent. We are going to walk to Triacastela which is 21.3 kms although we would like to go further. The only trouble is that the next albergue after Triacastela is another 13 kms away which would mean doing a 34 km day…. Something neither of us are willing to commit to! If we are making good progress and have no problems when we arrive in Triacastela we may carry on but I think it’s unlikely!
Some pictures from today…
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