Thursday, June 4, 2009

Day 35: 3/06/09: to Triacastela

We started the decent down from the mountain O'Cebreiro today.

We still love the surprises the rural areas can spring on us. Among today's highlights were:

* Getting caught in the middle of a flock of sheep & goats running along the path, snatching bites from everything they could grab along the way.

* Walking past a puddle in the middle of the track with about 100 inch long tadpoles swimming in it. Yes, tadpoles. Yes, in the middle of the path!

















Day 29: 28/05/09: San Martin del Camino to Astorga (259kms to go)

* Crossed the medieval bridge at Hospital de Órbigo
* Stopped to pet some cows - one with a serpentine tongue intent on grabbing us (or our equipment...it wasn´t fussy)
* Saw something take off almost vertically. It wasn´t a rocket, it was some sort of jet plane, but the take-off seemed VERY steep. COOL!!
* At dinner (homemade pasta salad on the top balcony of the albergue), discussion turns to the cheeky urge to fling the remaining pasta from the balcony on to the street and people below. I tell Hannah that one day I´ll organise a boy´s day for her, where we throw stuff off buildings and blow shit up. As a girl with three sisters, she was never exposed to the mischief that only boys can get up to. She semi-agrees to this, on the condition that we have a girl´s day - whispering secrets, putting in hair clips, wearning one piece jumpsuits and making houses out of piles of freshly cut grass. I semi-agree to this, provided that shortly after the girl´s day starts, we have another boy´s day where we run through and trash the girl´s day. That´s how boy´s days work.













Day 30: 29/05/09: Astorga to Rabanal del Camino (20kms walked; 238kms to go)

* Stopped at the 0.01km mark for a coffee. Stopped at almost every town for the entire day for some sort of refresment.
* Still managed to have our fastest day for about a week (probably caffeine induced).
* Officially left the meseta today. Glad of the change in scenery. Spirits higher than they´ve been in several days. Fatigue was starting to combine with visual boredom, but I suppose that´s what makes us appreciate the other parts of the Camino so much more. Many people leave out the meseta due to the tedium, but I think it´s an essential part of the whole experience. If we ever do the Camino again, we´ll definitely walk this part again. There´s a lot more to be experienced here than scenery, and definitely a lot more than I can put into a 5 minute bullet point list.
* Stood in front of the "Rabanal del Camino" road sign in a way that made it look like it said "anal Camino". Giggled like school girls.
















Day 28: 27/05/09: Virgen del Camino to San Martin del Camino (18kms)


* Walked along highway/roads all day, unlike the normal country roads
* Saw rabbits & bunnies in the morning. Ironically, pilgrims that took the alternative country route wouldn´t have seen the bunnies we saw next to the highway.
* Dinner with French couple and Norwegian lady, with Hannah as a translator.