Camino de Santiago
Remember that horse statue from Logrono? Well one of us had the cajones of the horse of General Escuela today, and decide to hike an extra 5K, all up hill, to start the day. The others (nameless) took a taxi and met the cajones guy at the top of the hill in Foncebadon.
All four of us could honestly state:
That was a heck of hill!
Man that was steep!
Phew, those taxi drivers sure drive fast!
After several days of fields and more fields, we were back in the mountains again!
I didn’t know Spain had another set of mountains for us to cross! Fortunately, we were already on top, and had great views throughout the day.
Within a mile or so we came upon the Cruz de Ferro, or the iron cross. This mountain has been a special place for over 2500 years to all sorts of people. The Celts liked this place because it was so high, and easy to defend, and the Romans had a monument to Mercury here (big traveler, that Mercury) since it was a crossroads for them. In the 10th century an iron cross was erected here. It’s still here, but now has a hill of rocks about 25 feet tall, and 30 yards wide surrounding. And it’s growing.
Pilgrims have been leaving a rock here for hundreds of years (kind of like a leave a rock, but dont take a rock bin) as a symbol of maybe releasing themselves of a burden, or to say a special prayer for someone. It can be a pretty powerful place. We all brought stones from home that meant something to us (I’ll leave that part undisclosed) and left them on the growing pile.
There were several pilgrims who spent quite a bit of time here.
It rained on and off for most of the day, sometimes hard, sometimes just enough to make the trail muddy and slippery. We all relied on our trekking poles… we needed the added stability since there were some dangerous descents.
One of my go to phrases is “If the winter were not so harsh, the spring would not be so sweet”. That gem came to mind today when it stopped raining, and coming out of dark forest area, we were treated to some beautiful blue skies!
With about 4 miles left of our hike we came upon the town of Molinaseca… where a cold beer was waiting for us.
On a separate note, We’ve all been keeping up on getting stamps for our credentials at churches, cafe’s and shops. Here’s what mine looks like so far… I’ve almost got two full
Our destination today was Ponferrada. This town sports its own Knights of Templar castle right in the center of town. It was built in order to help protect pilgrims along the Camino, among other reasons.
Buen Camino all!