Terminal Exhaustion

Cacabelos, Spain
Our dinner companion of the evening was Everett, a Dutch vocational school administrator. After a particularly grueling year involving a school merger, he took a 2 month sabbatical to walk the Camino. At age 60 he is in the final years of his career and contemplating a change. He enjoys team building and wants a chance to build something new. He is totally enamored with the Camino and hopes to use the time to think and figure it out. Interesting that he's the third school administrator/principal that we've met, though each from a different country. Still a bit tired from yesterday's workout, we chose to wait for breakfast at our lodging before hitting the road. Scrambled eggs never tasted so good! We actually left in daylight this morning and felt like we were walking by ourselves since we were well behind the familiar pilgrim morning rush hour. First town up was Ponferrada, a decent sized town located between 2 rivers. The Knights Templar made it one of their headquarters and put it on the map as far as the Camino is concerned. They built the Castillo de los Templarios, a 13th century castle worthy of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Too bad we have a long haul today, as it really would have been nice to do the tourist routine and go through it. Instead we settled for a fantastic café con leche and raisin bun stop before continuing on and finally exiting the city along the river. The route today was up and down hill, but nothing near as challenging as yesterday. Good thing as we are still exhausted from yesterday with stiff and sore calves. We passed a winery offering a wine tasting with pinchos for 1.50 euros, practically a steal by US standards, but didn't dare stop for fear we'd never start again. We finally practically crawled into Cacabelos, our destination, later this afternoon.Read more