A600AASS Day 13 - Las Herrerías to Fonfría
26.10.22
20 Km
Uuuuuuup. UpUpUp.
And up.
Today we climbed like I’ve never climbed before.
To be honest, I’ve never really walked before. At least, not like this. Not seriously.
I grew up in a house 7 minutes walk from the train station. Most mornings, I got driven there, and some afternoons, I was driven home, too. I got my driver’s license as soon as I could, and my motorcycle license not long after. On the farm (and long before I was licensed), I first rode a motorbike, then drove a Mazda 808 paddock basher — the Australian name for a beat-up farm car — and rode a horse. I did not walk about the farm. And although we have a great tradition of bushwalking in Australia and many great bushwalks, they were never really my thing.
So to walk 300 kilometres across Spain is the kind of idea that — much like flying for 24 hours in a pressurised tube to reach Europe — only reveals its insanity after you’re strapped in and heading for the horizon.
We stopped for second breakfast in La Faba, a third of the way through our morning ascent.
As we settled in with coffees, orange juices and slices of brown sugar cake, John stopped to chat. He’s 85 years old, lives on the Sunshine Coast (north of Brisbane, Australia), and is on his third Camino. He’s also walked the Appalachian Trail, the English Coast to Coast, and from Lands End to John o’ Groats. The man is a walking machine.
Vegetarian for the past 30 years, teetotal for that time too, he describes himself as spiritual, but displays no hint of dogma. He was a tradesman, then a truck driver, and now he’s a walker, beautifully — perceptibly so — at ease with himself and his place in the world.
After chatting to him at length over dinner, Chris returned to our room and described him as an inspiration. It’s hard to disagree with his assessment.
Tonight, we’re staying in Fonfría, a tiny hamlet clinging to a ridgeline in a howling wind. Before dinner, we snacked on fresh, soft cows cheese, studded with chestnut pieces and drizzled with honey. Out the window, we could see the cows from which the milk had come. Across the bar, the woman who fashioned it in to beautiful, creamy rounds. On the wall, a poster advertises a 1200 kilometre pilgrimage around the island of Shikoku.
Perhaps I am a walker after all.