Week 7 on the Camino

Day 43

I leave León with a light backpack, as I left most of my gear at the hostel.
I have a bit of a hangover, but nothing too bad.

After 7 km I reach the junction with the alternate and decide to do the longest one, to get it out of the way while having a light back.

I walk pretty fast all day to be sure to make it in time for the train back to León.

I meet a retired Japanese guy from Sapporo in Japan and as I’ve been to Hokkaido a couple of times, we talk about the region and its great hiking.

I arrive in Hospital de Orbigo not too late and unsuccessfully try to hitch for a while, before taking a bus and a train back to town, so I can walk the other alternate tomorrow.

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Day 44

I take a bus to La Virgen, so I don’t re-hike 7 km I’ve done yesterday. When getting on the bus, the driver says I need a mask. I haven’t put a mask on in pretty much a year, so I have to look for an emergency one at the very bottom of my backpack. It’s weird, I was on bus yesterday and masks didn’t seem mandatory then (nobody had one on). Maybe different bus companies have different policies…

Again, it isn’t the sexiest of walks. A lot of walking on the side of the road. I can see why they created the alternate I took yesterday. Around 2pm I meet a French lady I’ll hike the rest of the day with. She says than the albergue I was thinking to stop at is open, but as a hotel in winter and not an albergue. Not the same price…

She’s pretty keen to push all the way to Astorga, making it a 47km day for her and a 40km one for me, which is the biggest day I think I’ve ever done in such short time, considering I started quite late and it gets dark around 6pm. But we somehow manage to arrive before we even need to put our headlamps on. After showering we head to town and end up in an Irish pub where we see familiar faces on the way to grocery shopping.

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Day 45

Yesterday was definitely the busiest albergue I’ve seen, and it definitely starts to feel like what walking the Camino is like the rest of the time. Leaving town there’s a train of pilgrims like I’ve never seen before.

It’s also the first proper rain I have since starting in Le Puy-en-Velay. But I actually enjoy it and it’s over by 1pm, so nothing really that bad, though people were freaking out a bit about it.

And it’s a really nice day of hiking, going through really cool villages and also leaving the “walking on the side of the road” for a while. There’s some nice countryside, forests, and a gentle uphill. I actually only realise I was going up when turning around and seeing the view behind me.

I arrive in the cool little village of Foncebadón, but I am told that all the albergues are completely full! The next one is 12km away, which I wouldn’t mind, but at this point you kind of want to stick with the people you enjoy the company of. Though, just before I leave again, someone tells me I should check an albergue that is open on and off. It’s open, and it’s only two of us!

I meet Bernard, another French pilgrim, and after sharing a beer, we head to the bar/restaurant for dinner where we meet a bunch of familiar faces. After hearing (once more) about some trail love drama, I suddenly realise that I might be the only loser out here not getting any trail romance.
Oh well…

Yes, apparently it’s very much a thing to start the Camino with the intention of finding love.

The pilgrim menu comes with way too much food and way too much wine. Scratch that. There’s no such thing when hiking.

It makes for a great and fun dinner, but we have a curfew at 9pm at our albergue, which I’m really pissed about, considering it’s quite a pricey albergue. I really wonder how many hours of sleep one needs when hiking 20-25 km on flat terrain…
11, according to this albergue. Yes, I was a bit pissed off that I didn’t get to finish my wine when having a good time.

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Day 46

It’s drizzling all day but it doesn’t matter. It’s by far the best day on the Camino Francés so far. Mountains, autumn colours, fog, nice villages, it’s just perfect.

I arrive early in Ponferrada, where again, the albergue is pretty full. I do a long walk around town to get all the data for the hiking app, then head back to the albergue just in time for beer o’clock.

I chat for a while with Larissa, from Brazil, and it’s an interesting conversation where she says she’s very much doubting that she’s finding what she’s looking for on the Camino. From what she says, it sounds to me like she had a good time, but she was looking for something different, maybe a revelation, maybe some answers. She says she actually seriously considered quitting the Camino today. I hope she doesn’t and she gets somehow something positive out of it.

AND, I learn (when asking about the Carnival in Rio, where she’s from), that the Carnival is very, very much known as the “Golden Week”, when you should get a different sexual partner every day of the week, with the government even distributing condoms. Little did I know. Sounds to me like she’s just working for the Brazilian Tourist Center…

I think I just came to this point where you realise that the end of hiking season is getting very close. I’ve been walking for 6 and a half month now and it’s definitely a weird feeling.

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Day 47

I think I’m the first one leaving the very busy albergue. It’s pretty boring for a while, going through a never-ending urban area, but it gets much, much nicer later in the morning.

I’m walking through hilly vine territory, and the autumn colours are in full swing. And boy it’s beautiful. I think walking through orange/yellow autumn landscapes might just be my very favorite kind of walking.

I know some people don’t like autumn hiking because it’s supposedly cold and wet.
But in my experience,
1. Hot you can’t fix. Cold you can. Put layers on.
2. I’ve actually experienced waaaaayyy more rain when hiking in spring or summer.
So, yeah, I’m having a total blast right now.

BUT, arriving in Villafranca del Bierzo, I leave most of my gear in an albergue and walk 9km more for an alternate I need to cover for the app, thinking I’d be able to hitch back at the end of it. I’ve hitched in at least a dozen countries and it always worked out, but this time… The traffic ain’t great, and people just don’t stop. So after 40 minutes, I decide to walk back while keeping hitching. Nobody picks me up, so it’s an extra 9+9 km to my day…

Feeling pretty down about it, but luckily to this point, we’re a tight bunch on trail and it feels great to see familiar faces back at the albergue.

If you’ve been reading before, you might have noticed that I usually refer to people as The guy/lady from “insert country here”. Well, yes I suck usually at remembering names, but also, the ones I DO remember, I just have no idea how to spell them. Anyway, I see Jette, from Denmark, who feels sorry for me and offers a beer. Then I see Maurice, that I haven’t seen in like, two weeks. Then Camilla, who offers to cook dinner, which I feel so grateful about after that day.

And there’s some Italian drama that sadly I don’t understand. Yes, gossip on the Camino is a big thing.

It’s also probably worth mentioning that for a week now, the Camino has started to be a booze train for most. I’ll be honest, I’ve been hiking by myself for 6 months now, so I do not mind taking part in that. Though, if you’re wondering, it’s also very possible to stay out of that vibe.

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Day 48

I start the day by hiking the section I did yesterday afternoon on a different trail, going over the mountains, and it’s really nice. Great views and great colours. But somehow my gpx track must be an old one and I end bushwacking, thing I never thought I’d have to do on the Camino. I finally make it back to the trail and keep walking through some nice villages.

The trees are really beautiful in the area, some completely covered in moss. 3 km before Lafaba, my stop for the day, I see some pilgrims in a bar and decide to stop for a beer. It’s nice to have a break from the rain, as it’s the wettest day on the Camino so far.

Our group is the last of the season for the really cool albergue we stay at. And it’s in a really lovely mountain village. We get offered a Camino pin and a shot of whatever spirit we want by the lovely owners.

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Day 49

Leaving the albergue, it’s beautiful and misty. Going up, I end up in the snow for quite a while. I love it, it gives this already beautiful section a moody atmosphere.

I’m kind of short on food and the cold and wet weather pushes me to walk all the way to Tricastela for lunch. That’s where I stop for the day. The albergue isn’t great and empty. I go to the restaurant in town where there are quite a few pilgrims.

I said that inflation has hit the supermarket prices really hard, but definitely not the pilgrim menus on the way. 12€ for a good 3 course lunch is really cheap, and it comes with a full bottle of wine! Though I don’t finish it or I’d be sleeping all afternoon instead of doing my work on the app.

But… of course I end up meeting some pilgrims, have a beer where a very, very, drunk Korean guy tries to awkwardly warm my hands up, is picked up by his friends who apologise, then he comes back 10mn later and the whole circus goes on three or four times. I have dinner with Alfonso, a Mexican guy I met back in Burgos and again, wine is way too plentiful.

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