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Published: August 22nd 2012
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APOLOGIES..... ACCIDENTALLY MOVED THIS ENTRY TO 'SAVED' AFTER I ADDED A VIDEO .....SO THEN NEEDED TO 'REPUBLISH' TO MAKE IT ABLE TO BE READ AGAIN...
ONLY THING DIFFERENT IS THE ADDED VIDEO - J XXX
After the meal at the bar across the road, we went straight back to the parish hostel in the grounds of an old convent.....It was quite noisy, and more crowded - our 'overflow room ' had filled up with quite a few Italian cyclists as well as other walking pilgrims... The toilets were on another floor and the toilet/shower area was really cramped and badly designed- you open the door of the unisex showers right onto the guys using the urinals - kind of made me feel like scurrying out quickly and averting the eyes...
Settled to go to sleep early after a short time on the computer upstairs . The lights were still on and most of the bunks were empty.... There was hardly any room on the bottom bunk to sit up at all to adjust bag, belongings, drink etc - and EVERY time I did my hair caught in those horrible wire springs that are under old bunks
... I could NOT get comfy all night - just dozed on and off - the bed was sunken and really uncomfortable... when I awoke in the dark about 5-30 ...... ohhhhhhh.......my back.......it hurt so much just getting out of bed i started crying.... every movement - picking up my boots, getting dressed was really painful...... I went and sat on the stairs in the stairwell to put my boots on , and couldnt get down to my feet properly - couldnt do it.... well I DID after weeping gently and forcing myself to! I felt really embarassed, sitting on the stairs crying, and the thought of further walking that day was just SO daunting... I just wanted to get away from there, that place , but didnt want to walk with my pack - COULDN'T to be honest, but didnt want to stay in Ponferrada.....
Diane took charge when we went down to the common/kitchen area - she went to find the little posters we had seen everywhere re ferrying on your back pack for 5-7 Euro for up to25 km....... she had an adventure organising the forwarding because a/ that sign was nowhere to be seen b/
no-one was fluent in english so couldnt help by understanding what she wanted c/ when she DID get someone to understand he suggested a taxi - and then there was a 3-4 way conversation in various languages as the task was organised - for 25 Euro ! I was shocked by the price after seeing all those signs previously - but honestly i would have paid double that to NOT have to carry the 11kg on my back that day....And thanks goodness Diane was there to do all that multilingual communication.... I just sat outside watching everyone leaving.... I felt catatonic, in pain and NOT up to organising anything..... If I'd been alone I probably would have had to check in to a hotel - and just hybernate for the day.
While I was sitting I watched a whole group of people who were there to support and assist an Italian guy with some sort of disability - poss cerebral palsy? - I'd seen him in the toilet area and he was ambulant with sticks but could only do that for short distances . There was a whole team taking in turns to pull along a kind of cart
that he sat in when it was time to go and I was thinking about some of the paths and areas Diane and I had traveled - they would not be easy with that cart.....and I was really touched by the love and support he was experiencing - felt a bit weepy
again! We left my backpack behind...which i felt only a slight misgiving about doing - after all if it DID go astray - EVERYthing ( except passport/money) that I used on a daily basis was in there..... but I was comfortable with letting it go and trusting it would be in the 1st Albergue in the next stop.....
Walking was ...ok......... def easier without the pack on -was a wet misty day .....still managed to do 25km ........ AND my back pack was waiting for me in the first albergue AND we met Jenafer from US who we had been in 'blog contact ' with AND Clare and Tony were waiting for us at the edge of the village - Villafranca del Bierzo- to show us where they were staying.... it was a lovely little priv hotel called La LLava - and we ended staying also.....
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This is how i was feeling, old and cold ! it had a blissful bed, a lovely hot hot shower.... how important showers are for a sore body! We had dinner later with Tony and Clare, and breakfast in the morning also.... running the hotel was a lovely friendly couple - she cooked all the meals and was so sweetly chatty, he was 'front of house' and organised the backpack sending forward for BOTh Diane and I. He sent it on to another priv hotel (luxury - two nights in a row!!) belonging to a friend of his...
It was a wet misty day's walk - with some stunning scenery- see pics and after about 23 km we ended up at Herrerias - at the foot of the next big climb we would do to O'Cebriero . The beds were crispy sheet comfy, the shower hot - we went down to the bar in the afternoon for coffee and journal writing and settled in some comfortably in the room after that we didnt even leave it for an evening meal... we just ate what we'd been carrying..
We set off again the next morning and again, because my back was still improving AND because we had a 10km
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The silver rain, the shining sun, the field where scarlet poppies run,
And all the goodness of the wheat is in the food that I now eat.
So as I sit for every meal , with grateful heart I always feel
That I am eating rain and sun, and scarlet fields where poppies run....... A 'Secular Grace' from John Brierley's book steep climb to O' cebreiro - we sent both the backpacks on again...
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I hope ONE of these links works !! I cant seem to get it to do so..... IF you are interested you can copy and paste this into a youtube page and it should work !
It was a lovely days walk through stunning scenery- and now in to the province of Galicia which reminds those who have been there of Ireland.... We walked for a while with a guy called Marcus , from Germany - who started chatting - he caught up to us because we stopped to take pics so often... When we reached O'Cebreiro we saw it was a very picturesque village with a great deal of stone.. stopped in a shop there and bought ourselves a key ring each : mine - purple, Diane's- green ... it's theme we seem to have followed :-)
We walked past a great statue erected to honour pilgrims, and stopped to chat to a man in an umbrella who was trying to
get us to go in to the local bar.... we declined as we were focused on walking to the next place Triacastela - 30km from where we started (before the 10km climb)
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