A pilgrim´s progress

Hello one and all and thanks so much for all the kind wishes which have come to me through Frank or via your encouraging emails. Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to this blog, but it´s been pretty tough going, and having mentioned a height of 1330 m to climb in the last post, I had omitted to myself a much more challenging patch before that where the altitude was actually over 1500 m. Luckily there was light snow that day which made the going rather surreal, and the surrounding snow-capped mountains were stunning on that ascent. The little village albergue was like an Irish cottage without kitchen - straight in the door to the bunks, and a pretty cold night.

The countryside has been changing daily, from the long flat meseta or parano of Castille to the mountains of Leon with eagles and heathers and down into the wonderful white-wine-producing area around Villafranca (where in the old days one was permitted to complete the pilgrimage if not feeling well!), and then ascending again through brooms and wild roses up to the heights of O´Cebreiro, a celebrated pilgrim stop and the first one in Galicia. There I caught mass in the little Romanesque church which has been welcoming pilgrims for generations. Lots of bus tours there and the locals as a consequence are not the most welcoming, so I shook the dust (or dung) off my boots and walked another 8 km to yet another tiny village with hearty food and basic bunks.

The country around Sarria where I am based for two nights is very reminiscent of Ireland, with hazel groves, small fields and lush meadows for many varieties of cows. But there the similarity ends as the little villages on the pilgrim´s way are lost in time - sturdy stonebuilt with massive outhouses and huge local slate rooftiles. Herds are small, and farmers sometimes drive them on horseback along the narrow paths shared with a growing number of pilgrims the nearer we get to Santiago.

Here the rivers rush downwards, but many towns and villages have trapped their flow for diverting into bathing or washing areas - very tempting for this sweating pilgrim! Yesterday I came upon a man milling maize for his animals, in a cobweb-hung horizontal water mill - he was proud to show me the mechanism which uses no electricity whatsoever.

My time on the library computer is somewhat curtailed so tomorrow I will resume the narrative and give you an idea of what the day-to-day life on the road (and in the dorms!) is like. I am so excited that Frank is coming here to join me and share the amazing experience, and hope we catch up with some of the wonderful people I have met along the way. With temperatures now in the 30s we will probably have to make pretty early starts and arrive before the real heat of the afternoon sun : up to now I have been one of the last into the albergues, but thankfully have never had to sleep on the floor!