Camino de Santiago
We started this wet day in O Cebreiro. A pretty town of stone houses on top of a mountain known for its sunrises. None of which we could see. Estaban, now renamed Estaban el Loco (the Mad) decided to hike up the mountain first. Huh? In the rain and mud.
It was raining medium hard, but we thought we could walk 10-11 miles to a town, and then decide how to proceed. We made it 5 miles. And then the skies and wind opened up. I heard a whole new kind of “ wind roaring” in this tempest!
I must have made a big sail, because I was blown off the trail several times as the wind whipped up one side and then down the other. Absolutely crazy.
At about this time, I let out a maniacal laugh. I really did. What the hell were we doing? And then I saw this statue…
It was at this time that the rain was coming sideways. And it hit us hard. Felt like little peas of ice hitting our face.
We found a small cafe in the town of Hospital de Condas. their power kept going on and off with the wind. Turns out we were actually walking through hurricane Kirk… which none of knew about except for Drew, whose girlfriend Kate told him about 2 days ago! Somehow it must have gotten lost in the translation, because we were oblivious. Power was out all over Galicia. Drew said it was fun hiking in the rain.
Drew here! It was fun! For about 6 kilometers. We had a lovely stroll through the mountain forest, which felt like a rainforest with small waterfalls and the sound of rain on leaves. Eventually we left the shelter of the forest and that’s when the wind really hit us. Rain was flung literally sideways (I saw it!) and it hit so hard it felt like hail. When we got to the tiny town of Hospital de Condesa we went into the only restaurant and realized that they had no power. So we sat down just to drip dry and then the power came back! Yay! Then it immediately went out again. Booooo.But it came on a minute later! Yay! And then died a few minutes after that. We went on like this for a while, but eventually the power was stable enough to serve coffee and hot snacks so that went a long way into improving morale. I changed my clothes in the bathroom and upgraded from drenched to only mostly damp, which was nice. We also called maybe 12 different taxi numbers but predictably they were slammed today. BUT, the upshot of all this is that we are now certified badasses for mountain hiking during a real actual hurricane. (Please ignore the two taxis and inherent foolishness of hiking during a hurricane). Drew out.
We called a taxi, but because it was wackadoodle out there (for you Mere) everyone was trying to find a taxi. We waited a good two hours before ours arrived. While waiting in strolled our friends Miranda and Matt, and sure enough Estaban wandered in as well. Can you see how wet they are!
So, Steve said “Oh its not too bad, I’d like to keep walking” in the tempest, aka borrasco.
So Steve took off with Miranda and Matt. Will we see him again? Most of us didn’t really care.
It turns out we did not see Steve again. That night. We taxied further (another 2 hour wait) to get to Sarria where we are now. (Steve found another place to stay and we will catchup with him tomorrow. Seriously, he texted us he was shivering in ankle deep water and had to stop! I later got a call from my sister Lisa ( steves wife) who said she got a message from a guy in Tennessee who said steve was fine and that he will meet us boys in the next town tomorrow night. Steve’s phone crapped out on him, so he had to ask a stranger to text his wife who then texted us!)
Sarria is abut 100K from Santiago, and it is from here where you have to get two stamps per day in your credential in order to get the compostela in Santiago.
Recall that the first third of the Camino is physical. Check. The second third is mental. yep, done. The third part is Spiritual. So during the storm we decided to talk about what questions we had, and how we might help each other answer them. The questions we came up with:
1. how do they cure meat? We still do not know.
2. How do they harvest sunflowers? Why are so many still on the dying plants?
3. How do hydraulics work? That one is from me.
Readers? Any help?
Lastly we took this beautiful mountaintop picture
