The Foot of O'Cebreiro

We are in Las Herreras, just at the beginning of the last tough climb of our Camino...plenty more little ones, yes...but nothing like this. 10% grade, for 7 kilometers. Yes...we have a rewarding 30km of downhill afterwards.
From Villafranca we had a cold, soggy ride farther up the valley, but it is narrower now, and a fast flowing river gets closer and closer. I am pretty damn cold, if you wear too much, you sweat like crazy under the raingear, not enough, brrrr. Stopping for hot chocolate improves my opinion of the world somewhat and we press on. If you let Dad get on pavement he's a road monster, and since the camino is beside a by-passed highway, we ride on it, and he just flies off. I just pedal on, bicycling is different from motorcycling in many ways...on the bicycle, I keep my eyes just ahead of the front wheel or looking about, no need to get depressed about the hills ahead. On a motorcycle, you look as far ahead as possible.
Oh, and that throttle thing is way groovy, man.
The place we stay in has three rooms over a bar/restaurant, we first ate lunch there, very good food, too, and then went down the road to a refugio.
This was extremely rustic, the beams holding the floor above up were whole logs, the beds were very spare, and apparently Ann had spoke to the refugio keeper, who'd said she would turn the heat...and disappeared. We tried napping, a normal event after we find beds to fall into..but two carpenters next door were practicing for a dental exam or something..from the sounds, it was a very serious impacted wisdom tooth extraction. After a bit of this (Brian and Tom pedal off, Brian said he didn't want to know what our dreams were)we go check out the upstairs, and find that the radiators downstairs are fed from a water heater in a cold woodstove, and...when the carpenters are still at it at 6pm, we go snag the rooms over the bar, where we eat another wonderful meal, have some great wines, and fall asleep to the sounds of the river chuckling about a joke it won't share. The birds here are very vocal, and wake us up early..as if Dad would ever sleep in.
There is a really nice old shepard here, Nero, I name him, after his emperial snout, which was seriously bent in an unfortunate accident...with the mangled ear as well, it was amazing how friendly he was. His fur felt like a sheep, quite thick, and never washed, I'm sure. Most animals in Spain are quite leary of humans, which is sad...and why we appreciate the ones who do let us approach.
The woman who asked when we wanted breakfast never appeared, and the dishes from our dinner are still at the table, so we hit O'Cebreiro on cafe con leche y pan.
Typical Spanish breakfast.