Day Forty Eight: Vega de Valcarce to Fonfria: Oh, Cebreiro!

May 14, 2017

Getting our bikes and paying for the room was a matter of going round to the back door of the bakery and rousting one of the bakers from his work. Some fresh empanadas would also have ben nice, but they were still in the oven. So we shoved off quickly for what we knew would be a long day.

The sleeping town of Vega did not show much action as we slipped through. It became even lonelier for us as whatever walkers there were were sent on a short cut up the mountain, while our road route skirted around farther and presumably flatter.

Out there on our own, what type of conversation would you hear if you were a fly on the handlebars? How about, Steve: "Hey that mountain does not look as high as all that, this will be no problem". Dodie: "Shut up, before I push you and your bike over that cliff". (Steve has a reputation for bringing on hills by denying they are going to come). or,

Steve: "Hey, look at those trees!" Dodie: "?????" (We were passing through mountains covered in zillions of trees)

A fun visit to the bakery to pay for our room and get our bikes from the garage

The autoroute travels on these high bridges - quite a few of them. How in heaven's name do they pour the concrete for these?

A fine house by the roadside, is an albergue

Colourful fungus on a roadside tree. But the heather garden is just a memory - it was only in that one special place below the Iron Cross

These are the trees I was blithering about to Dodie

Fortunately, even if the walkers were occupied elsewhere, some various cyclists came to entertain us. The first, incredibly was Sam. Sam is the walker whose blisters Dodie had tried to patch up, on the other side of Leon. Sam had said then that he wanted to make it through Leon that day. But now we learned that he had barely made it in. Then he got a wrap for his achilles tendon, and his blisters were resolving, but unfortunately his right knee gave up. At that point Sam threw in the backpack and rented a bike and panniers. So now he was biker Sam.

Dodie warned Sam that just getting a bike would not necessarily end his knee problem. Se gave him some knee cream, which Sam would add to the massive doses of Ibuprofen that he is taking.

Now came along Mina, a strong cyclist from Netherlands. She had indeed cycled from there. From Santiago she plans to jump to Bordeaux, and then to cycle home.

So that puts Mina's trip on approximately the same scale as ours. Mina shared some donuts that she had, and we shared some chocolate. It was really fun and no longer lonely to be standing on the road shooting the breeze. Eventually of course we all set off, Sam saying that perhaps we could eat lunch together in O Cebreiro. As predicted, though, the road did steepen, and the trip up became really a walking one.

More cyclists came along, and two of these we recognized from yesterday. This was Sarah and Marcal. We had already learned that Sarah is from Sweden (Gothenburg) and Marcal is from Spain (Barcelona). They have been living in Barcelona but after this trip they will move to Sweden. Sarah and Marcal cycled and pushed on, but we would meet them and the others again, at the top.

Roadside chat session. No danger of cars - very few use this road

We walked/pushed 15 to 17 kilometers. This time around not just Dodie but I too felt the hill was awfully darn high. Even so, not long after noon we did make it to the famous O Cebreiro. O Cebreiro is famous because of the nasty hill, but also as I mentioned yesterday, because it is made out to be a super cute hamlet. True enough the streets (street?) are all cobbled, and the houses are all made of stone, and thre are a number of Pallozas, which are round houses with thatched roofs. But like Carcasonne, we felt the place was too cute for its own good. Tour busloads come and park above the village, so people can stroll down and look at how cute it is. Maybe they can get a stamp in their guidebook, and gawk at any true pilgrims who actually walked (or biked) up here.

Still, we did enjoy the place. First off, the very name has been a bugaboo since before we left, symbolic of the hills we probably could not get up. Ha! Next, Sam was there, and Sarah, and Marcal. These new friends made it so much more enjoyable. Sam had already eaten lunch, but we sat down with Sarah and Marcal. We shared a salad, and I tried to enlist Marcal to talk to the waitress to get some explanations about the menu. though he is Spanish, he did not seem to be doing much better than we were. I later asked him if it was differing accents between Bacelona and here. No, he replied, it's just that people in Galicia (for we have entered Galicia!) can be hard to definitely pin down on stuff.

I ended up getting what they called beef ribs, and yes, I guess that's what they were. Lots of fat and gristle, but ok, actually. I was a little leery, becaus ethe meat smelled "extra aged". Five hours later, I am not sick, so clearly it was fine.

From O Cebreiro there is a fine view of the mountains and valleys below. It is a patchwork of forest and field, quite unique.

After about two hours of hanging out (a plan to let Dodie's knees maybe recover a bit) we all said goodbye and set off. I had had the vain hope that maybe a little more climbing and we would sail down the other side of the mountain. Not so! There were still two further peaks, and these were no slouches. It was really unnecessary, we felt, since in principle we had already "done it".

It was not quite goodbye forever with Sarah and Marcal. We ran into them again, with Marcal trying in vain to free Sarah from her parka, where the zipper had jammed. Dodie took over, and I was thinking it was probably a special experience for Sarah to encounter a surrogate mother on the trail, to help her with her zipper. Unfortunately the darn thing would just not come unstuck, so maybe Sarah has a parka for life!

We had booked a room not too far down the mountain from O Cebreiro, shooting for a short day. But given the difficulty of the climb, and the two bonus peaks, we only got down to our target village, Fonria, around 4 p.m. The village certainly did not look like a holiday Mecca. In fact at first we could not see a way in that was not actually the lane of a tumble down farm. When finally we did get onto what sort of passes for a main street, it was more of a farm track too. At the end of the track was our place. At first it looked rather tumble down too, but that was deceptive. Within the old stone walls, our room has really nice, new stone walls, tile floors, cedar plank ceiling with beams, good plumbing. Good internet too. Outside our window are the much described green hills of Galicia. Also, just now, our hostess lady and her husband passed under our window leading three beautiful milk cows home. Obviously she does not spend her whole day waiting for goofy tourists like us to show up.

We are now under 200 km from Santiago, meaning that we need two stamps per day as we slide on in. We are going to take it just a little slow. And we are weighing our options about what to do after Santiago. But we don't want to get ahead of ourselves though. Much Camino fun is still to come.

Postscript: I went out to the dining room and the lady made me a large coffee and produced some fresh almond cake. While I was eating this, another dozen or more of the beautiful brown cows walked by the front door. This place has an amazing combination of small village/farm authenticity and gorgeous rustic rooms. That's Casa de Luca in Fonfria, in case you happen by here one day.

A rather classy version of a Paloza - traditional design in this region

A look out over the Galician countryside

Sarah and Marcal coming up the hill, with two other cyclists

Sam and a German cyclist that has paired up with him.

This enticing offer to walkers to just glide down the hill is really a hoax on them. There are two more quite tough summits before anyone does any gliding.

Scenes from O Cebreiro, starting with the closed (of course) church

I am trying to shoot for maximum "hobbit village" effect

A look out over the hills from O Cebreiro

Teaming up to get Sarah's zipper working - no luck!

There is a village here called "Hospital". This, we think, is the original namesake building

Our guest house tonight is super rustic - outside mainly

The view from our window - note the Palloza

Look how cute the cow is! The dogs obviously know the cows well, and like to participate

Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 2,122 km (1,318 miles)

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