A Day of Ups and Downs

Carol didn't feel at all well this morning so I set off on my own to get today's walk out of the way as quickly as possible so I could spend more time with her at today's destination.

For the first mile this morning the trail was earth and random stones but then suddenly it turned to a well made, level, small gravel path and continued to be so for the rest of the day. Was only later it dawned on me that this started as I crossed into Galicia. Fingers crossed this continues to be the case all the way to Santiago.

The terrain in the guide book beyond O'Cibriero showed a gentle rise and fall for 6 miles but it was anything but. The road seemed to do that but the path dug into the hillsides did anything but, it was literally up and down for that whole distance. Yesterday's big final climb was 450m but today I did 486m of climbing (along with 977m of decending) that wasn't even supposed to be there.

The forecast had been for rain this morning but the mountains seemed to have a different idea, thankfully. It didn't start raining until a couple of hours after I got in and was having lunch. Though it was raining so hard when we finish and were about to leave that we had to stop and have a beer.

Today's accommodation had a large communal room on the ground floor, with drinks fridge and honest box and a pellet woodburner in the corner. So rather than going back out we spent the late afternoon and evening in there by the fire, with a couple of drinks and for a while chatting to an Irish couple who had lived in the States for the last 35 years. He was a retired Anglican vicar with some interesting stories about running a parish in Belfast during the troubles. Not the sort of person I'd normally bump into in Leytonstone.

Laguna de Castilla to Triacastela
Distance: 14.56 miles
Time: 4hrs 3 mins
Speed: 3.6 mphRead more