19 May 2008

It turns out that the Albergue we stayed at in Ruitélan was a Bhuddist Albergue. It had a picture of the Dalai Llama on the bulletin board, and burned incense sticks. The atmosphere was very friendly as we had met most of the people previously, and though we were packed in like sardines (1 toilet and shower for 34 people) things went quite well. The communal dinner was also very good with a bottomless jug of wine, a huge platter of salad, a huge pot of soup and a huge pot of spaghetti carbonara. We felt sorry for the young girl beside us who was a vegeratian. The next day was the day we were to climb El Ceribiero, so it was early to bed.

We didn´t get that early a start, as we were told the night before that nobody could move until the music started at 6:30 a.m. We were woken up with the Ave Maria, it was really beautiful. As most dawdled over breakfast which consisted of the great Spanish pane cut into rough slices and toasted, together with butter and honey or one of any number of jams, we were not out until 7:30. By-the-way Tim Horton´s has nothing on Spanish coffee. It is consistently good wherever one has it. All the restaurants have elaborate machines not only for making the coffee, but also for despensing it and packing it. I have become a convert to Spanish coffee, which means that I will have to revert to tea back in Canada. Anyway all that to say that we got off to a slow start. It was drizzling slightly so we water-proofed ourselves and set out with our packs, even though we had talked about having them sent. For the most part, the climb was not that difficult for us and the scenery was breathtaking. One must describe a part of the path later on that morning. Enormous cow patties littered the path, they were really smelly and disgusting. Because of the rain or because of a rather sick herd, the stuff was glistening. As we moved on, again because of the rain of previous days, we had to trudge through this smelly mud in which I could see the mixture of glistening cow dung. It did not seem to bother very many people but it did me. I was heaving every now and then but we made it past this maybe 500 metres and the rest of the road was beautiful. We were so pleased with ourselves when we got to Cebreiro, which was packed with busloads of tourists "pilgrims". We had heard so much about this climb and it had turned out to be fairly easy for us but, it was not finished. After descending for a while, we climbed again to the same altitude as Cebreiro but in a much shorter distance. That was the difficult part people must have been talking about. Up at the altitude of 1500 metres, it was quite cold and since we were already sweating, it was quite uncomfortable. The descent to Fonfria was long and tedious and, by then, we had walked 22 kms, so it was time to stop. The Albergue was run by a Portugese couple and, again, was really full. The dinner wss, like the previous day, a communal meal, serve in a most unusual but very nice round building made of stone with a straw roof. Just before getting to Cebreiro, we entered the province of Galicia. Maybe it is our imagination but we all noticed that the food was a lot tastier. They seemed to not be afraid to use salt and some spices. Dinner was enjoyed by all and again, a bottomless jug of wine made everyone quite jolly. We were in bed by 10 p.m. I (Danielle) seem to now have quite the head cold. My theory is that dog suffer from Kennel cough and Peregrinos suffer with a Peregrino cough.