One Last Mountain

So I bet you all thought we fell off a mountain or got run over by goats or decided to stop walking and become flashers ourselves. But alas, none of these things are the case. As you probably figured, we have been without internet access for a little while. So I´ll give you all a quick update!



We stopped in Hospital de Orbigo, and met Jess´s grandparents for lunch, and ate so much that neither one of us was hungry for dinner, so we went to bed instead! The town was beautiful, they had an amazing medival bridge, and beside it was a perfectly preserved jousting field, which was very cool to see.

The next day we got up and walked to the first little village for breakfast, and caught the morning news, which showed highlights of the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, and let me tell you, it is a brutal tradition that these people take part in! We actually saw someone get killed by a bull on live tv, and many more trampled within inches of breathing. It is crazy that anyone would do this voluntarily! After this disturbing morning newscast, we walked through to Astorga, where we stopped for a bit and saw Gaudi´s Palace, which was amazing, definitely one of the most beautiful buildings so far! We decided to continue on an extra 5km to the next little town, where we practically had the hostel to ourselves. Other than us, there were 2 other women who stayed there that night, and we were the only ones who opted to eat dinner at the hostel, so we were treated to a private dinner of home made spaghetti and white bean salad! Delicious!

From there we walked to Rabanal, where we passed a very uneventful afternoon of playing with local puppies and reading, and after dinner we went to bed as usual, we wanted to leave very early the next day because we had a lot of walking to do, and our hostel wasn´t very nice! Shortly into our walk the next day, we climbed a small mountain which hosted the Iron Cross at the top, an important pilgrim monument. A simple cross, with a huge pile of rocks at the bottom, that have accumulated after many years of pilgrims leaving a stone from their home country behind at its base. It was beautiful to see, but we didn´t stay long, because we had a lot of downhill walking to do before we reached our destination. 27km later, we roll into beautiful Molinaseca, where we had one of the best pilgrim´s dinners yet, and a great hostel to boot!

After a good night´s sleep, we got up and walked about 25km to Cacabelos, which is famous for it´s wine, and featured a hostel in the courtyard of the local church. The accomodations were small ( 2 beds in a 8´X 8´ locker, much resembling my storage unit in Carp ) but quite nice, it was private and clean, which is all we really wanted, and quite unique. We had dinner with a small group of other peregrinos, including women from Japan, England, Australia, and a man from Arizona. A good group of people, and a fun dinner later, we headed back to our room for a good night´s sleep.

Today we ended in a little town called Vega de Valcarce, and are staying at a Brazilian hostel, the dinner we just finished was amazing, Brazilian style food and all the wine we could handle! We have 7 days of walking left, and the end seems so close, but we are still about 169km from Santiago. Tomorrow we will be climbing our last mountain of the Camino, called O Cebriero, and hope to travel about 32km by the time the day is done! So needless to say, we are going to bed nice and early today, so if internet access permits, we should be filling you in on how the day went tomorrow night!