Camino 2023

After a great nights sleep we were up and on the road 7:30 am, dark, and pouring rain. We probably made a poor choice to walk in dark and pouring rain, however we had a big day ahead of us and wanted to get a jump on it.

It was 4K into the next town at the base of a mountain, and ducked into the first cafe and immediately tan into Camino friends from Washington state who were waiting to ride the horses up the hill.

We warmed up and tried to dry up. The village horseman came in and informed our friends that it was too treacherous for the horses to go up the mountain. We inquired if we should walk, as many pilgrims were continuing, however using the road), he shook his head no and we jumped into a cab with the 4 Washington state people and drove up 5km.

On the way up the single road, winding up the mountain, a pilgrim was frantically waiving poles for the taxi/van to atop. When the pilgrim took off rainhood we saw it was Pilgrim Chris from Michigan. We gave her a lift up.

Taxi dropped us at the top of the Galician mountain in an old Celtic town called O’Cebrio. Wind was howling, we were soaked to the bone. We toured the church and and a few buildings. We even found Joan a warmer coat and I got a sweatshirt to warm up.

We found another cafe and we had what we thought were hot chocolate, however it was melted thick chocolate like a pudding. Delicious. Joan had the local Galician soup and loved it.

We literally saw two German ladies we have seen along the trail and they had shorts and a t shirt and only a poncho on…we felt grossly inadequate. We shared our table with two Friars walking in their long black robes. They were both priests/monks from Florida-
Father Elias, and Father Cambell. They were soaked to the bone and on their way to the monastery.

Joan and I had another 4km to our next stop/Hostal for the night. We geared up and hiked it through the howling wind and sideways rain.

As we entered the one structure town, I realized we did not have a suite for the night and sure enough I booked the wrong city and we needed to pivot. We walked a little farther finding a store/counter cafe and had to pull our guidebook out and find lodging. We were in the middle of nowhere.

Pilgrims were pouring in soaking wet and miserable. And in walks our 9x Camino pilgrims Rich, Karen and Lisa and they are in their 60’s and they were done for the day.

We had found a new place, somehow got a cab ordered to the next town, and we invited them to share the ride with us to Fonria.

We got dropped off at a brand spanking new, just built, most beautiful Casa Galego. We both got our own rooms across the hall, showered, and promptly did our laundry and tried to dry everything out.

The Casa Galego had 8 rooms with a large ground floor table. A woman built and ran the entire Casa including cooking all the food. It was so unfortunate as the views would have been outstanding on top of the mountain but it was clouds and rain, fog and very high winds.

At dinner we met our fellow pilgrims that made to this place. A 21 yr old girl from Netherlands, a man from Finland, two young guys from Brazil, a woman from CA, and a woman from Korea.

We all ate together and soon we were all playing uno and drinking wine. Another highlight on our trip. We would probably still be playing if Joan didn’t knock over and break her wine glass, promptly ending our night with hugs all around.

Sine we had taxied to Fonfria, wonlonly had 9kmRead more