Mendocino > Camino de Santiago

We are over the top, and at the foot of O'Cebreiro again, but 30km into Galicia. While the others were having mad dentist dreams while napping in the Little Refugio of Horrors, Brian and Tom cycled up to check out the trail the guidebooks keep warning us about..Brian says.."Yes, it is muddy, yes there are rocks, but there is also a paved way, a narrow single track into the fog"...and so, after our coffee and bread breakfast, up we go. The single track is a bit longer, 9km instead of 7, and steep like the stairway to heaven..up,up,up. Dad disappears ahead, Tom passes me a little later, then Ann catches up. Brian goes the dirt path to make sure Tom didn't go that way, so Ann and I climb away, walking now. 0.2km, stop, breath, repeat. This goes on for three hours, through oak, gorse, heather, fog, rain, up. A mini Pyrenees...that climb went on for twice as long. Finally, we are there..not a lot to see, on the windy, misty crest; but a bit further is the actual town of O...

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. ...

Ponferrada has a huge Templar castle overlooking the town, we go check it out in the morning while Ann gets some work done on her term paper..the castle is in great shape, built in the 1300's, and repaired/remodeled many times.. We leave at noon to Villafranca, a sunny (off & on) ride across this lovely green valley, small farms with neatly plowed rows of peppers, wheat, grapes, and fields upon fields of blood-red poppies. Dad and Ann fell back taking photos of an elderly burro, Tom and Brian got farther ahead...I was all alone on a single lane road surrounded by poppies. Stopping to take a photo of a field of them, a car driving by pulls over, out leaps an older guy who asks to let him take my picture...I'm thinking...sure, take my photo, then take my camera...but no, he knew his way around the Nikon and got a couple shots of me, gave the camera back, shook my hand, saying "Buen Camino!", dove back in his car, and sped off. This all took less than five minutes.....

What day is it? If it wasn't for my palmpilot, and the big parade in Astorga today...I sure wouldn't know. We made it to Rabanal del Camino today, 40k from Hospital de Orbigo. Pretty amazing considering we did two museum tours in Astorga,, one Roman, one the Camino museum in the Gaudi Palace, AND had a 86€ lunch in some....yes, tiny town. It was Cocida Margata, Ann said it was a stew, but it turned into a massive three course meal, plus desert. We knew we were in for something special when the plates came out...nice plates. An old woman across the street yelled at the bar and we got instant service, I will post her photo with these words. She had five dogs around her, and a very musically talented bird hanging in a cage in the second story window. One of the dogs I named Leon, because of the cathedral...his balls were so big the first thing I said was... "Oh My God"..just like the cathedral. Jesu Christe! Watching him walk reminded me of the bells in the cathedral tow...

Somehow, via the Camino forums, I knew this was a special place...no-one said anything in particular, but the name drew me...as did the entry to our aubergue for the evening. Walking through the ancient doors, the patio/gardens just pull you in. The host is lancing a walkers blisters, and I wait until he is finished. He stamps my Camino passport, and shows me the rooms..WC here, internet there, washing tubs and clotheslines over there, rooms full of bunks here, here, here, and here. We get a room to ourselves, but it soon has 5 walkers as well. We've a lot of respect for walkers, they travel a difficult path. Today was pretty easy, a late start, we change plans yet again and cycle out of Leon, not fun. Traffic, smog, beeping drivers, all conspire to keep us on our toes, with sensors on high. Finally, though...out in the fields again. 41k today, to Hospital de Orbigo. The longest bridge on the Camino is here, and a long story too. The church steeple has four storks nests, all fully ...

Here we are in the biggest town we will go through on our way to Santiago. We are in a pension, 4 stories of rooms, about 8 per floor, and the matron is on the second floor, across from Dad and I. We can see the Leon Cathedral spires from our window, over tiny, tiny streets and tile roofs. After the pretentious Burgos cathedral, a monument to conspicuous consumption in the form of the Bishop, I was not prepared to like this one....But. The first words out of my mouth upon entry were..."oh, my god" 800 years old, with the finest collection of stained glass windows in Spain, and I think Europe, at least original stained glass. It is a bit difficult to photograph something so huge, but here is a detail of one of the doors. Photographs were not allowed inside, this did not prevent the Germans from marching around clicking and flashing...one guy was taking photo's of the 'No photographs' sign...tacky. Time to head out again, we are walking around looking for good thing...

Ok, the official name for the town I so ungraciously called 'turdpile' is Calzadilla de los Hermanillos. Our hostess, the chef/ma from the previous evenings dinner, was way too nice to leave it at that, and besides...the next town deserves the name even more. Mansilla de los Mulas..'Hands of the Mule?'...This was a 22k ride from the last town, across Roman Rubble Roads...politely...a constant butt massage from a sadistic massuese using a bat. Poor Dad & Brian have no suspension, so it is even worse for them. Mansilla is where we get our first flat, Tom picks up a spike through the rear tire. I take the opportunity to look for wireless and notice mule size prints in the cement sidewalk, and later, large piles of green goo in the road, so Mansilla takes the Turd Queen crown. Dad later gets surrounded by sheep, a whole flock being driven through town. One photo in this post is of the town gate, they all had/have walls, and the gates closed and guarded at night. There i...

Me gusta mucho la comida de Galicia. Mi favorita es el calamari. Me gustan las conchas también. Salvo la cáscara porque es seña para el Camino de Santiago. Fuimos a la Catedral de la ciudad de León. La Catedral es muy grande! Fue construída hace ochocientos anos. No me gusta la bebida chocolate aquí. La bebida "chocolate caliente" es muy pesada. Chocolate con churros es muy bueno. La gente no habla inglés. Es muy dificil para mí hablar el español. Me gusta mucho hablar pero es muy difícil para mí. Me gusta hablar pero no aquí. Me gusta hablar mucho en la California.

Ayer fuimos a Ledigos. Fuimos para 48.3 km en las bicicletas para seis horas. No me gustó el camino porque tiene muchas piedras. Me gusta la comida. Mi comida favorita es el jamón. Me gusta la bebida también. Mis favoritas son el café y la coca-cola.

We are in Sahagun now, 18k out of Ledigos. We are sitting in the town square, having coffee. Ann and Tom are doing homework, Dad is walking around shooting photos. I still have yet to find an unlocked wifi signal, at least, one strong enough to get these out. I might just use the WiFi-where app as a location finder and walk around until the one free one is strong enough to lock onto. That didn't work...but I had a nice walk. Sahagun is a nice town, but it is too early to stop. We got picnic stuff, the next town is 25k away, no water, no food. Somewhere in there we stop on the trail and bust out the food..red wine,olives, pate, salami,french bread, cherries, and a strange pear thing. Ann snags an old steel pot and has it dangling from a handlebar the next two days. She also points out some Spanish thyme, and I grab a bunch for my vinaigrette, when I get home to make a batch. We stop in a tiny town..(have I mentioned they are almost all tiny?)and look at the refugio...4 rooms, 2 bunk...

Cycling, that is... The blush is off the rose, so to speak... We did 48.3 kilometers today, I did about 10 more because the sender for the trip computer fell off almost as soon as we hit the dirt...but I did find it, and it is ziptied back on. We are in a very small village called Ledigos, which has the only cat and dog we've met yet in Spain that was not very afraid. The Camino is quite crowded with noisy Germans, we are in an auberge that is 7€ a night, dinner was great, 3 course, two bottles of wine, one of water, five of us, 40€. Dad is giving me a lot of Nikon and photography tips, I am glad he brought his camera this time.

I've loved trains...since I was tiny... So much better than the bus! The car is full of children from some school, all middle school age, rapid-fire Spanish flying all around. We have to take the local, no bikes allowed on the express, but the stops won't be too bad. This one we are on now goes to Palencia, then we transfer to one up to Fromista, where we left off last year. These red flowers are everywhere, calling them 'red' does not do them justice... Well, that was a real thrill...the kids were two groups, boys & girls, apparently on field trip to Madrid from Palencia. One very cute one asked, in perfect English, where we were going, and another asked my name en Español, and they said theirs, which of course I can't remember. It was a fast several hours surrounded bymachine-gun gossip! They played a card game, charades, sang songs, and swapped back rubs, my kinda kids.... We transferred to the Fromista train after the kids got picked up in Palencia by o...

We are in Madrid, at Carmens apartment..this is the place with the python shower...and the lights on timers....ohhhhh, yes. I remember this! we are up and at it....long damn trip, crying baby in the seat in front of me on the SF-London flight...yuck. Nice video on demand on the plane, tho...tons of movies to watch. I was a bit groggy when we got here, but slept ok, dad was snoring bigtime, but i just slept on my good ear and let the deaf one deflect him! plans are to catch the 1:30pm train up to Fromista, probably not get there until 8pm or so tonight. Carmen and her sisters swooped onto the airport and swept us away, just what we needed! everyone kisses your cheeks , both sides, men and women...I like that tradition! They are so nice to meet us with all this energy and we need it. We should be on the Camino tomorrow... Hope you all are well, we are doing fine here. There are clouds everywhere, and showers occaisonally, but we are going many miles north, weather will be different. ...

Here we go again, a year and a half later, back to Fromista and the camino. Same people, same bikes, same mud. Buen Camino! David Russell