Cruz de Ferro

Molinaseca, Spain
We had a delightful dinner with 2 young ladies who are also on the Camino. Emma, 26, from British Columbia, Canada is on a break from school. When she returns, she'll be finishing up her degree in forestry. She's following in family footsteps, as both parents and her sister have done the Camino. Alex, 19, from Perth, Australia, was taking a break from work and school. When she finishes the Camino, she's heading to Portugal to work for a bit before heading to England. She plans to live, work, and study in England for about 2 years before returning home. Her field of studies is economics and international relations. She was very down to earth, had all her plans well researched, and was the most squared away 19 year old I've ever met. We finally called it a night as we're all heading out early. The sky was still dark when we left in the morning, only stopping in town for a quick café con leche. It's almost 8 kilometers to the Cruz de Ferro and we hope to be there early. It was a steady climb uphill and just when we thought we should be there, we entered the small town of Foncebadon, which we joked translated meant "fooled you, you still have a few kilometers to go". Sigh. Fortified by orange juice, we continued on. We finally made it to the Cruz de Ferro, an iron cross originally mounted on an oak tree, on Monte Irago with an altitude of 4,938 feet, the highest point on the Camino. Traditionally pilgrims leave a stone signifying a burden at the cross and say a prayer. The closest spot to the heavens guarantees the quickest transmission, I guess. Many things are not what they used to be, and this was no exception. The oak tree has been replaced by a telephone pole (direct line to heaven?) and even though there have already been over 300k pilgrims this year, the size of the stone pile was not commensurate with years’ worth of pilgrims. Determined not to get distracted by the disconnect, we carried on the tradition, leaving stones as well as a star from the US flag while we said prayers for family, friends and country. Two kilometers down the road we passed through Manjarin. While we jokingly refer to small places as a one-horse town, this was literally a one-person town. Manjarin is occupied by the last of the Knights Templar, who is dedicated to caring for pilgrims. Though the guidebooks said rustic with no electricity or running water, we did see solar panels and a wind generator out back, concessions to the times I suspect. The descent from the Cruz de Ferro was steep and rocky with large slabs of slate throughout. The numbers of rocks in the trail seemed directly proportional to the steepness of descent. If the rock had been snow, this would have been a triple black diamond ski slope with moguls worthy of an expert. We earned the billy goat badge by carefully picking our way downhill safely while young folks behind us jumped from rock to rock with amazing speed. We stopped for a quick lunch in Acebo before finally making it to Molinaseca for the night.Read more