photo44photo35photo16 the dry river outside Domenico de la Calzado

Granon has a very good reputation for a  spiritual experience in the monastery and yet again many walkers told us about how good it was, with music and the general vibe, we walked on after coffee and the usual pit stop to Redecilla. We passed the usually boundary markings as you move out of one Spanish region into another.

After Redecilla we walked to a superb cafe and made a wee mistake. It was 12.30 and it seemed not too hot. It wasn’t but when we left at 1.30pm and traipsed along the road to Belorado it was clearly roasting hot and we were burning. That alone guaranteed we’d stay in the first place on hitting Belorado.

On the other hand our hotel in Leon was superb and it was situated close to the best FREE tapas with drink bars. The cinema place was our favourite but the two around the corner were excellent too.

Hotel manager’s take note….pilgrims recommend!

This is a great stretch on the camino but it is open to the elements so dodging the sun relies on big hats or parasols, there is rarely any shade until you arrive in Rabanal.

You can chuckle as we climb through the hills and foncebadon, past the 7/6 monument and then the big one when we get to Cruz de Ferro. The Iron Cross seems awfy small when you arrive but the stones are everything.

Here are some pictures. I’m working on the words but my favourite town is O’Cebriro – its where my thoughts concentrate on people I’ve known and been lucky I’ve known them so well

As you leave Samos you follow the road for 500m before crossing it up to the right. You then rise and fall with the yellow arrows through woodland, along very quiet back roads and its beautiful. Your biggest danger however is the conkers. They drop from the trees at this time of year and as you walk along the silent roads and trails the only disturbing sound is a rustle of leaves, then a smack, as another one hits the deck. You keep walking at times getting a bit nervous as the sun is on the wrong side and you know you’re heading east not west, but eventually you reach a juice machine, unfortunately its not working! On and on you walk and when a car finally passes you at 2.30pm you know the siesta is soon. I sent Harry a text and sure enough the car duly passed him. Its always good to know you’re only 15 minutes behind. At long last, a cafe, and we meet Carlos from Asturia and then  Maria Jose, our Uruguyan, whose boyfriend is in Scotland at the moment. As usual, after such a long wait for a cafe, the Albergue duly follows, 500m later. Its got juice machines so we fill up again and walk into town singing anything with California in it and replacing it with Caledonia. Its been a long day again for anyone walking near us and poor old Helene  has just caught up with Harry. We walk past the first two pensions and then stop at the third. 25 euros gets us a single each with a shared shower and toilet between the two rooms. No snoring, works for both of us! Back down to the bar and guess who rolls into town, take a bow Declan from Dublin. I look down at my ankles and its clear my right one needs a rest but its tough. If I wear the boots, its protected but my leg goes, if I wear the sandals the ankle swells, and looks like the big Iberian hams hanging in the shop, hmmn. Later on I try to take a picture of all these birds flying by, but all I get is another crane!

Barbadelo seemed a lot further away than my leg expected. After the climb up through the woods there’s no cover for an hour or so. Harry was miles ahead as I dodged along in my wee dwam (that’s a bit of a doddering daydream), only to be disturbed from it by some cows walking the camino towards me. Normally I’d be running scared but my leg was so sore I was happy to push my way through the beasts as if I was some country dude, even the habitual large farmers dog didn’t cause me to blink. Up ahead Harry had met up with Sara again as well as Yoshi and some Brazilians. I stopped for a moment, but the leg was saying keep moving so we ignored the Casa and walked on. Up ahead was Carlos the hippy from Asturga who we’d met yesterday. He was doing the walk from the south and it merged near Sarria with ours. He’d brought his own dog and was charming some other geezers and an older woman, he’s a natural, but Harry was now in need of some serious comfort so ran past them to the Albergue. I kept going at 1.5km per hour, full in the knowledge that he’d soon catch up. There was a good looking bar but I thought its only 6km in, we really need to keep going a bit longer. Longer it was through the forest, another lovely shady spot but my leg gave way again. I swapped over to the sandals and applied some more volterol. I kept going until I figured we’d walked about 10km. An ice cream stop at the cafe seemed perfect. Harry duly appeared with his tale of woe. The Albergue had been shut and he had to go to the Casa del Carmen just off the camino, I’m sure it was the one we stopped at as the sun was telling me we just did a 180 degree loop, one for google earth, another day. There are cafes all over this section of the route and on another day I’d stop at them all. We met some Dubliners who had just joined the camino at Sarria. They were on the 7 day special and had backpacks to prove it! While Terry was striding out while his mate (Finter?) was struggling at the back with a water system that kept jumping out his pack and onto the camino. Up the crazy paving we went then down into another cafe with cemetery. They like a cemetery here and this one was bigger than the village, huge houses for the dead, but we walked on, I figured we were getting close so we stopped eventually at Mercadiaro, which I thought would be 40 minutes away as we could now more or less see Portomarin. An excellent stop it was too, Tinto de Virano all round and a bit of Tortilla to soak it up. Sadly another detour took us miles off the line and as my ankle complained Terry and I walked like demented mad men and got into Portomarin for 4pm, a lot longer a day than we’d expected, but a brilliant walk, the scenery was superb most of the way and only a bit of vertigo going over the bridge and a dodgy leg andankle wasn’t going to get in the way of the fun. The other two rolled in 15 minutes later and the drinking began again. On www.fatal-bananas.blogspot.com is a video of our Father Ted time when we completely lost it during a filming, a superb evening. We never saw the guys again – we figure they would’ve been well ahead with their fresh legs, they’d have made it to Palas de Rei, while we stopped in Airexe.