Day 34.

We leave Cacabelos on a cold crisp sunny morning, a pretty town with lots window boxes with flowers in them..a nice stream running through with the reflection of trees in it.We head up the road with vineyards lining each side, art work on buildings adding colour, sign saying 182 km to Santiago de compostela.Hard to believe I have been walking for 33 days with 5 rest days…just a natural thing to do now..walk at least 25 km a day.We find pears on ground that have fallen off the trees. We nibble on one and keep a few for our lunch stop.The trail winds up and down along country roads. We finally glimpse the church steeple, that what you see first when nearing a town.Villafranca del bierzo has another amazing castle, road works happening here too. We stop for drink and chat to Italian girl who remembers me from somewhere on The Way, she even remember the albergue, I remember her face. We carry on walking through really old villages but following the motorway, miles above us. The motorway is a real engineering project with 100s metres of high concrete.

As we walk beside the stream we decide to stop, sit down and take our shoes off and put our feet in the very cold water, refreshing. We indulge in pear we picked up. Sun is shining it’s warm, we feel so blessed to be able to have this experience. We pass painted blue trees, apparently art to brighten place up and maybe take focus off the overpowering motorway. Lots animals today along the way, horses, cows, dogs and cats.

We arrive Vega de Valcarce for the night and stay at San Maira Magdalene albergue for the night. People are lovely she Italian and he Spanish, they met walking the Camino 8 years ago. We run into the Aussie girl who we had met few nights before and she still struggling with her feet, she’s 33 and won’t take a day off…trying to punish herself. We are joined by an Italian man who has been biking the Camino so we all have nice dinner together. I am tired and asleep early. What another awesome day on Camino with my Camino family. 

Day 35..Bell ringer was the highlight.

Big days walk..we did 26km to Alto de poio. Arrived at 6pm…even though a long way we had a great day, just enjoyed the beautiful scenery, animals and people along The way. We had to climb the second biggest hill. We saw farmers herding cows and walked in a lot cow shot.The Autumn colours were just stunning and we came across a real funky wee cafe up the hill, they had hammock inside and nice tea, crystal jewellery as well.Then we crossed the border into Galicia province the last stage of the Camino.We stopped at the village that supposed to be where witches are from , Janine brought a cap and man gave us badges , mine had Camino and New Zealand flag…pretty special. I found an ancient falling down church and it still had a bell , so I just had to ring it.We arrived at our hostel which was like an old fashioned New Zealand hotel,we even had a bath in our room, so a soak with Lavender was in store. Luxury!!!

The old fella running the place on his own made us dinner,funny old man, reminds Janine of her Grandfather. He looked after us well. Slept really well.

Blessings

Angel