Gailisteo Day 15 - April 29, 2012

 

When we set off yesterday from the embalse (reservoir), it was cloudy and cool and threatening rain all morning as we walked through the countryside to the next village, Canaveral, some 11 kms distant.

 The road was a rocky car track, which was dissected by a highway in the making. They seemed to be building a super highway in the middle of nowhere and bulldozers had torn up the land and created a barrier to our path on the Camino. The highway had been cut into the terrain in a deep excavation, but there were no signs that any of the work was in progress - it seemed an abandoned site.  It was a muddy trail to get across the site and back onto a reasonable walking path.

It was a tiring walk as it was quite hilly and rocky and there were mud and puddles to trudge through once again as it had rained heavily through the night. The terrain was now decidedly alpine and if not for the several km of mucky roadworks it might have been an entirely pleasant section.

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The scenery however, was spectacular and as the morning wore on we were treated to moments of sun as the clouds broke up a bit.

We were able to lunch in Canaveral, where we paid 6.20 for a coffee and a piece of tortilla patatero and some cheese. Mostly when you order tortilla you get an omelette, but this version is mostly potato and is made like a cake and served in slices. Compared to what we had paid elsewhere for such meals this was expensive.

 We had one big uphill climb as we headed to our intended destination of Grimaldo which was rocky and very steep but the view of the valley behind was worth the climb! I felt sorry for the 8 peregrino cyclists who had to push their bicycles up this long steep climb.

Can you see what looks like the remains of a Roman Aqueduct in the distance?

We followed the path through a pine forest and then beautiful meadows with cork trees, flowers, cows and brooks. We walked through a Cork tree forest - something I had not seen before. The trees lower bark is harvested as cork.

In the last kilometer several things happened. The weather took a turn for the worst and started to pour rain as we climbed our way out of the walking trail, down in the valley up to the village of Grimaldo high above. Also, in that final leg, Barb had lost her footing and fell as she crossed a creek. She was quite shaken up and had hit her head/eye on the rocks. The final disappointment was that there was no room in the Albergue and there was no other accommodation in town.

We decided to take a cab to Gailisteo the next destination and treat ourselves to a hotel as we assessed the severity of Barb's injuries. There was a bar, so we had a couple of brandies while we waited two hours for the only cab in town to become free.

Fortunately, Barb had not broken anything and just has bruises and a nasty black eye.
We now have a dilemma. The next few sections are long 30+ km and there are few Albergues. I might add that the locals tell us that the Camino is hosting many more Peregrinos than unusual, so accommodation is scarce. The other concern we have is the forecast for cold temps and rain for the next 2 weeks! We are considering options of busing forward a bit to a section with shorter legs and more albergues. The complication is that there are few buses and a national holiday on Tuesday, so we may end up stuck in a small village and no way out of town if we linger.

We settled into what I would think of as a motor hotel and took a siesta while we waited for 9:00 pm when the dining room opened for dinner.

Stay tuned amigos!