Camino: Villafranca del Bierzo to O’Cebrerio 21.2 miles

We woke up early on 7/6/17 to get a head start for our long, steep hike.  Patrick, a guy from the Czech Republic whom we met the evening before, decided to join us that morning.  It was still dark out at 5:45am, so we used our headlamps to help guide us.  It’s interesting trying to find the trail markers in the dark.  Good thing there were 4 of us.  The route started out following alongside the road.

Around 7:30am we reached a cafe/bar that was open so we could grab a coffee.  It turns out that Patrick is a Personal Trainer so he had us working on hip opening stretches to help us with our backpacks.  I chose to keep drinking my coffee while doing the stretches.

We continued our walk alongside the road.

There are many small, sweet churches along the Camino.

You can enter the churches and get a stamp in your Pilgrim’s Passport.  If you start the Camino with over 100km to get to Santiago de Compostela, you are supposed to get at least one stamp per day to prove that you walked.  If you start with 100km until Santiago (this is really popular) you are required to obtain two stamps.  This is for when you obtain your Compostela at the end of the Camino.  You can also receive these stamps at cafes and alburgues.

Everyone comes to the Camino for a reason.  Some of those reasons are religious, spiritual, transitional, deeply personal, grieving, life changes, or seeing if your body can physically do this.  Whatever the reason, you have time to think about it while walking.  You may spend time in silence, deep in your own thoughts OR you may talk things out with new friends on the Camino.  It is really interesting to me to hear what others think and what they are going through, as well as sharing my thoughts.  I have always loved meeting people and hearing their life stories, so this aspect of the Camino is just great for me.  When walking for so long, we did also get into super silly moods as well.  So there were many laughs shared.

We started to reach the ascent.  I believe we had an elevation change of 1300 meters.

Everything started getting really green and lush.  It was pretty warm as well.

I really enjoy going up hills.  It is physically challenging and feels good to me.  It makes me feel strong.

Taking a break going up the hills.

Horses coming down the Camino.

As we are on the Camino, many farmers are moving their livestock on these pathways.  You need to be careful where you step.

Once we reached our ascent, there was a bar/cafe for Pilgrims to refresh themselves with.

We now entered a new province of Spain, Galicia.  It has a history of being a Celtic area and you feel as if you are in Ireland when walking this portion of the Camino.

It started to very lightly sprinkle so I was able to use my backpack rain cover.

We approached O’Cebrerio and saw the hobbit looking homes with the thatched roofs.

We stayed in a municipal alburgue that evening.  You learn to quickly get used to having your personal bubble challenged because you are sleeping very close to people you don’t know from all over the world.  I use eye blinders and ear plugs when sleeping in albergues.  It helps tune out flashlights and snoring.

The church in town is built on the site of a 9th Century Parish.  It had to be rebuilt because it was in a state of disrepair.

When I arrived in O’Cebrerio, I learned that I had HUGE blisters, so big in fact that we named them. The shoes that I brought to wear are the shoes that I trained in.  They fit me perfectly.  That is a big problem.  You need to bring shoes that are a size to a size and a half bigger than your normal size.  They should fit you good on the heel and have plenty of space in the toes.  When you carry a backpack, you have extra weight on your body.  In addition to that, you are walking LONG miles in the heat so your feet are going to swell.  The path is not flat ground but instead can have a lot of uneven rocks in it.  For training purposes, try to find ground like that to walk on. What a lot of people chose to do and what I’ll for sure do next time, is bring sandals to wear the last few miles of the day.  This allows your toes to have space.  Megan had badly hurt her Achilles’ tendon, so she hiked in her Birkie’s almost exclusively.

Today’s hike was dedicated to my mom.  I chose today to be her day because of all she is going through with her cancer diagnosis.  She had surgery a few weeks before I left for Europe.  I was so grateful that I was able to go down for her surgery for the week and spend time with her & my dad.  She found out she had Stage IV Appendiceal Cancer in January.  She has been an inspiration for how she is dealing with everything.  She is very matter of fact about it all and does not ever show any signs of feeling sorry for herself.  She is so positive and continues to be more concerned about other people rather than herself.   Thinking about her helped me push through any pain and continue on with the mileage.  She has always approached life in a very laid back manner.  She finds humor in situations that others may not.  She is very selfless and thinks about others all the time.  She is an inspiration to me and helped me push on today.