Chuck's News: Day 14 - Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - Camponaraya to Trabadejo - A choice of paths - 15.26 miles - Total Miles to Date

We have met such a variety of people on this trip. Each is unique. The variation in their motivations for being here, their physical ability to do the walking, their background experiences, their income level and the method with which they attack this challenging walk is remarkable.

This evening we met two ladies from Australia-sisters-Cheryl and Susie who are taking their time walking the way, as if time were a malleable commodity, easily molded to fit outside circumstances. Delay a day to allow something else to occur? No problem. Walk short days to save feet and see sites? Why not? Spend the afternoon getting to know another couple people who they just met? Perfect.

In Rabanal, two nights ago we met D’Ann, age 59, a former Toyota executive in charge of logistics for North America, newly retired. Utilizing her training and job skills of 34 years behind, she has reservations for every night made in advance, every distance preplanned. She mostly stays in private hotels with the occasional albergue common room. She prides herself in speed hiking and motors by most everyone on the trail. She arrives at her hotel room around noon or a little after, showers, has lunch, naps and goes to dinner.

We met Jan, age 31 of Germany. He wants to walk far everyday and describes the long distances he will probably walk, but then often gets to talking, or meets someone and ends up doing about 12-15 miles instead of the 20-25 he envisions himself doing.

Anna Marie of Denmark, age 20, has struggled with foot problems since we met her weeks ago in Frómista. She is bubbly, lives up to the “happy as a Dane” ideal, has no travel itinerary, makes it up as she goes and is not sure what she will do when finished because she just finished high school and wants a gap year before she starts college.

Barry is a 67 year old, athletic man. He sees the Camino as an athletic challenge, setting long distances for himself each day. He is a semi-retired hedge fund manager with plenty of money to “get by”. He stays in private rooms for the most part. He has found the walking a challenge due to multiple foot injuries from blisters and walking weird to compensate for the blisters. He came to have some think time while walking by himself, but has not been able to. All his mental energy has gone into pain management of blisters and injuries.

Of course, there are others, but it is fascinating to see how the Camino is different to each of them, how they react to the Camino and how they adapt their preconceived ideas of the Camino to the actual Camino now that they are well along on their journey. One common denominator: each finds the Camino a type of sanctuary for the soul. They each came to get something from the Camino, athleticism, spiritual renewal, connections with others, time to think and more. Each appears to be walking away with what they came to find and more than they thought they would find. Nearly universally, the people from over 70 different countries find they have everything in common as humans, at least the important things and are finding a community of people they feel a part of. The world would be a better place if everyone could spend a month+ walking the Camino interacting with people from all walks of life, all religions, all nationalities. It is a grand melting pot.

This morning we were in the downstairs foyer getting ready. The lights are automatic, as is true in nearly every building we have been in here in Spain. The lights come on when you enter a space and stay on, as long as you are moving. If you are standing still rifling through your pack, the lights go off about half way through your task of finding something, or packing. You must wave your arm to light the room again, and then try to keep moving to keep the light from shutting off again. Such was our actions this morning.

Once the morning routine was done, we were out the door and on the street. Sally and I were both sore from our 5 miles of downhill and 16.5 miles traveled yesterday. It took some distance before things loosened up enough for us to move smoothly down the street.

In the town of Cacabelos, as we walked down a narrow street, to our left was a bakery. No glass display cases, just a small transaction room with a glass wall that allowed you to see a brick oven 10 feet high and 20 feet wide with a door to access the oven. A paddle 14 feet long was used to shift trays of baking goods around inside the oven. We stopped in and bought two loaves of VERY fresh bread. One I ate over the next mile and a half. The whole loaf. The other we saved for lunch or dinner or breakfast.

While looking in a church albergue, D’Anne caught up with us and we talked a bit, then she took off at her speed walking pace. For the next mile the way was the shoulder of a fairly busy road. Not enjoyable at all. Finally, it turned off into field of grapes. We followed narrow farm roads for the next 4 miles, stopping now and then to sample the grapes. They were ripe, sweet, juicy and delicious. The way undulated over low ridges and down into shallow valleys until we finally dropped into Villafranca del Bierzo. It had been six miles since the bread stop. We stopped at a corner cafe for a soda, put our feet up and were enjoying ourselves when Barry turned the corner. We spoke with him for 5-10 minutes, then dropped (literally) into downtown to the Plaza Mayor and found a restaurant to have lunch. We also bought a knock off brand of KT tape at a farmacia.

We walked through this beautiful town, circling around to the bridge across the river. Once we were across the bridge, we walked through a little part of town and then started walking up a quiet, winding road. We had two choices once we crossed the bridge, and we had chosen the road in the river valley over a 700’ climb to a ridge top, a run along the ridge and then a 500’ drop to our town Trabadejo. All that climbing and descending seemed too much work. Yet, we were edgy about walking the road because we thought we would be paralleling the freeway all the way up the river. We were, but it turned out the freeway was so elevated above the old winding road it replaced that its noise was nearly unnoticeable. At places the freeway was well over 150’ above us, the only evidence of it were the giant pillars of concrete we walked near. The road walking was delightful. It hugged the river, was shady and green with the sound of the river babbling by. We had 6 miles of this to walk. It passed quickly.

We entered the town of Trabadejo, walking past chestnut logs and chestnut lumber (the forests here are mostly huge chestnut trees), past the saw mill and stone buildings and arrived at Casa Susi, our albergue for the night. Fermin greeted us in the reception area and showed us the ins and outs. This building had been a pig barn for 300 years before Susi and her father repurposed it into a 12 bed albergue in 2017. They did a stunning job. Fermin and Susi grow vegetables in the back and then serve a communal style dinner for 9€ a head with the vegetables they have grown. We joined in, as did the other 10 guest. It was utterly fantastic!

D’Anne came by about 5:30pm with sodas and chips and we sat outside on the patio and talked. Jen from Germany joined us after awhile. We shared ideas and lives until 7:20 when we needed to go to our communal dinner.

As is usual, we each shared a bit about ourselves before dinner started, then Fermin brought out a tomato, zuchini, bread dish that was incredible. That out of the way we had a Spanish rice and vegetable dish that was equally amazing. Sorbet for dessert. Wow!

Between getting to the albergue later than normal (about 3:15) meeting D’Anne at 5:30 until 7:30 and then dinner from 7:30 to 9:30, we got nothing done. No planning, no writing, no packing, no pack pickup arrangements. But, we had a great time and will catchup tomorrow. We plan to only hike 8 miles tomorrow. This will give us time to make arrangements. We are about to enter the last 100 miles. Tour buses bring hordes of tourists in for this last part of the Camino and accommodations can be difficult to obtain by just walking into town, or so we hear. We are hoping to, and dreading, planning the next 8 days and making reservations. Dreading, because we like to be spontaneous when traveling on foot or by bike, but 2000 people a day finish in Santiago, so accommodations can be at a premium. We must plan ahead and then stick to our plan. Bummer.

Town before sunrise. We took a photo of the taxi sign Incase we needed to call one to get us to our destination.