Joe's Buen Camino: Back on the Camino

After two days of rest, we were all anxious to get back to walking the camino. We weren't sure how Julie would respond after the food poisoning and having eaten almost no food for three days, so we didn't set our expectations on getting too far.

It shouldn't have been a surprise, but we were able to walk 19 miles on our first day back! My pack felt heavy, but my legs were full of energy. We took some time getting ready as we were out of practice wjich was probably best since Ponferrada isn't the best marked city. It was almost daylight as we left the city.

Ponferrada is another one of our favorites on the camino. It's not too big with a population of 75,000, but has everything a pilgrim needs. The castle pictured in my last post was impressive. It has a few nice town squares in the middle of the old city. Best of all, we stayed at an albergue that had just opened a month ago.

If there is such a thing as a 5 star albergue, Guiana is it! Each room only has 6 beds and its own private bath and shower. But this isn't your typical Camino shower, granite with a shower head that pours water over you. The hospitalero was the nicest, making rice for Juliana and making sure that no one else was assigned to our room. She even offered for Juliana to spend a month with her next summer.

All in all, it was a relaxing few days and it seemed like we were staying in a hotel. Luxury.

After leaving Ponferrada in the morning, we walked through the suburbs of Ponferrada that was lined with nice, new houses. A long stream of cars passed us from 7 to 8 am, most likely people commuting into Ponferrada for work. This is the first time we have seen this type of activity that early in the morning. The rest of Spain seems to casually roll out of bed and start working around 9 or 10. In other parts of Spain, we pass restaurants that advertise breakfast, but aren't open by 9am.

We continued on our scenic walk and arrived at Villafranca del Bierzo. For the first time, I was confused which way to go. There were arrows pointing in all different directions. At the information booth, a guy told us a completely different direction to go. We walked for awhile without seeing any shells or yellow arrows that mark the Camino, and we knew we were in trouble. We asked an old man on the street, he looked at us in bewilderment, the shouted some directions. It took us to a busy highway, but from the guidebook, I could tell where to pick up the Camino again.

At the next town, we decided to call it a day. The albergue wasn't bad, single beds instead of bunks, but about 6 inches apart. To our dismay, our fellow bedmates were a bunch of old Frenchmen. One thing old guys do well, smell and snore, and this group held up that reputation. I slept with headphones listening to a book on tape. Marion and Gisela barely slept.

Because of the poor night of sleep, I decided to delay waking up until 5:15. We had a big day ahead of us, but we also needed rest. The morning was cold as we left at 5:45 and being in a narrow canyon kept the day dark untik almost 7am. The first 9 miles were flat and we knocked it out by 10am with a couple of stops for breakfast.

The next 5 miles had a 2,000 foot elevation gain. It took the next three hours to get uo the hill to O'Cebreiro. Marion was sustained with wild blackberries from the side of the trail. Juliana didn't need any fuel as she charged up the hill. Gisela probably could have used one of the horses for rent at the bottom of the hill, but she is determined to walk every last mile.

We decided to stop as the next few towns were small with limited accommodations. We saw the Frenchmen at our albergue, but eere happy to see that they were in a different room. Our room has 56 beds and is completely full, but I think we will be able to get a better night of sleep. The Camino is crowded now mainly with college aged Spaniards. I didn't see another American in our 104 person albergue that is completely full.

O'Cebreiro is a very small but nice mountain town. There are a few restaurants and stores. The held a Pilgrim's mass at the church which we attended. A nice way to finish off a day of walking.