Rabanal de Camino

This morning we left the city of Astorga. We met some lovely ladies at breakfast in the hotel where we were staying. They are staying in the hotel we are in tonight too and we had lunch with them. They are from New York.

The walk was relatively smooth. We walked for a long time with a couple from Florida. That was very nice. The big challenge today what is the weather. It was rainy and windy and cold. We had to wear our ponchos for a good portion of today’s hike.

When we arrived in Rabanal, we went down to what I think is the only place to eat in town. We usually either skip lunch or have just a sandwich. But this afternoon we had the pilgrims menu, which is two courses and dessert. David had some spaghetti and I had a good soup. Then David had some pork and I had some chicken both with fried potatoes. And ice cream for dessert. It was great!

We came back to our room and are basically snuggling up because it’s cold and we are trying to dry out our wet clothing. This is the first time that the radiator has been turned on in a room where we’ve been staying. It’s kind of crazy to think that not that long ago we were dressing for very warm weather. We were slathering our bodies with sunscreen and still getting kind of sunburned. I was wearing my sleeveless dress and my Capri length leggings. Now it is cold and blustery. It’s pretty likely that there’s going to be a lot of this cold and rainy weather for the rest of our Camino.

We’ve been watching the mileage markers and we have about 250 km left. It’s a little maddening because the mileage markers are super inconsistent.

Tomorrow we are going to the Cruz de Ferro, which is a huge mound of rocks with a large oak pole that sticks out of them with a cross on top. Pilgrims leave a rock from their homeland as an act of forgiveness or remembrance or prayer. It is the highest point on the Camino and it is a high point spiritually on the Camino. I did a lot of research today to try to find out which part of the downhill is the one that is particularly slippery in wet weather. I think tomorrow will be an OK day to walk downhill but perhaps the next day is a day to catch a taxi for 10 km or so. I hope I am making the right call on this because nobody wants to get hurt.

We are beginning to think about the end of our Camino, because we are getting close. We were saying today that we are getting to be habitual about stopping in churches on the way. We are having a blast, and we are beginning to miss being home a little bit.Read more