Trabadelo → O Cebreiro
Distance: 12.15 miles / 20km
Elevation: +2583ft, -633ft
I woke up today at 6:15am when my alarm went off, but I stayed in bed until around 6:45am because I was super tired. Eventually I got up and packed all my things up, being one of the last people up. That meant that thankfully I didn’t have to fight for a bathroom to use. I got going and left at around 7:15am, and it was dark out when I left. I left at around the same time as Clare, a woman from New Zealand, who I met last night. She offered to walk together because she had a headlight, and she thought I didn’t - I still have the one that Tovin brought me, I was just too lazy to pull it out. On these cool mornings, it is also sometimes nice to walk in the dark!
The first part of the day was pretty flat, and I stopped at around 5km to go to a café that was called rock ‘n’ roll pizzeria. I just got a café con leche there, but they had the cutest dog named Oreo, who was so sweet and wanted attention so bad that whenever I would stop petting him, he would stick his head up under my arm and guide it towards where he wanted it. So adorable! After I finished my coffee, I left and kept walking for the day, and it was a pretty beautiful walk.
The way passed through a lot of very cute small villages, and it was very nice to see the smaller local towns. Before the big climb for the day, I stopped at an outdoor café, and got a tuna and tomato sandwich. There, I met a Finnish guy whose name I can’t remember, but we were both taking a snack break and we chatted for a while about how our Camino has been, and I told him about Tovin who is also Finnish. This guy is a really speedy walker - he had started only about 17 days ago, while today is day 28 for me.
After the break, I kept walking, and soon after we began the uphill climb for the day. The climb to O Cebreiro is known as the other big push of elevation gain during the Camino, although I don’t think that’s true because I have gone through a LOT of elevation changes. In hindsight, today was a lot of uphill, but it didn’t feel as challenging as I had expected it. The first section up until La Faba was quite steep, and I had to take many breaks. It was also tough because there is an option to go up the mountain by horseback, which a some people choose to do, and the horses leave a lot of poop on the trail. It’s not fun trying to avoid a landmine field of poop while also climbing a pretty steep mountain.
Thankfully, there were a few little towns during the climb that had water and bars you could sit out and rest, and it wasn’t too long of a climb. I got to O Cebreiro around 1:30pm. I explored town a little bit, before heading to the municipal albergue. On my way into town I passed a guy playing the bagpipes, and also saw a road marker officially stating that we are leaving Castillo Leon (the region of Spain I've been in for awhile now), and entering Galicia, which is the last province of the Camino! It’s crazy how far I’ve come.
I got to the municipal albergue, and ran into Liz and Santiago on my way there. They were also staying in O Cebreiro tonight at the municipal, so we all went and checked in together. There was a line to get checked in that wasn’t moving very quickly, so while we were waiting, we were all stretching and chatting about how our days have been. When we got checked in, I got put in a bottom bunk in a room that I think had about 80 beds. I was nervous about staying in this municipal tonight, because I know people in the past days who have gotten bedbugs! In a small town like this, the odds of running into someone who has had bedbugs seems a lot higher.
After getting my things settled, I went and took a shower. This was probably the craziest shower I’ve taken on the Camino. I walked into the women’s bathroom, into the shower section of the bathroom, and was immediately greeted by a fully naked lady. I looked into the showers, and it was six shower stalls that had no doors or curtains, which means when you’re showering, you’re basically facing everyone else, and it was just very interesting to be fully naked around all these strangers. I ended up taking a shower at the same time as Liz, and we have become much closer than I think we intended to today.
After my shower, I did laundry and I ended up with a basin that had a hole in the bottom, which was annoying because I am running low on my laundry soap, and I had put so much of it just for it to go down the drain. After I did laundry, I hung it up and explored town a bit more, before Liz and I went to meet Mark and Santiago at the café in town! I had lunch which was a glass of red wine and a big Galician meat empanada. It was very good, although Liz and Mark got the Galician soup, and I kind of wished I had gotten that instead because it was a little bit chilly outside and soup would’ve been delicious for the weather.
We all sat and chatted for a while, and eventually Santiago left. However, soon afterwards, Edwin from yesterday’s albergue came up and joined us. We all sat and chatted for a while I all went off to do some exploring separately. I went into a gift shop and looked around, and got a pin before I walked back to the albergue to check on my laundry. I climbed up the hill next to the albergue, and sat alone for a bit before I realized that Mark, Santiago, and Liz were all at the table across the hill, so I went over and joined them.
I noticed a path that led up to an even taller hill that you couldn’t see over, and I was really curious what was up there. They had mentioned they were curious too, but after all the climbing today, they did not feel like taking the journey up, so I went and checked it out alone. It was a really steep climb and the hill was longer than it looked, and it also had a false summit, so when you thought you were nearly at the top, turns out there was more hill. But I got to the top eventually and it was absolutely beautiful. There is a big wooden cross at the top, and it has beautiful 360 degree view of the mountains around. I sat up here alone and journaled for a while, before eventually Liz came up and joined me.
We took some photos, chatted, and then she went back down. I stayed up here a little longer to enjoy the time alone and and reflect on how the Camino has been so far. It’s been such a great and meaningful experience, and I don’t know if I can put it into words yet what it has meant to me. I do know that I have met some amazing people and seen some beautiful things, including the view at the top of the mountain today. It’s it’s really hard to believe that this journey is coming to an end in a week, and it’s so shocking to think about how far I’ve come when I look at maps of Spain. I really can’t believe I’ve walked all that way already! It feels like I’ve been walking for forever, but also it hasn’t felt very long at all.
I’ve really enjoyed spending time with Liz, Santiago, and Mark recently. All of us are pretty independent and do most of our walking alone, but at the end of the day, we often find each other and it’s really nice to have people to spend time with after the walk during the evenings. Even though I haven’t known them long at all, I’m going to miss them when the Camino is over. I also feel very lucky to have found this spot - It’s not on any of the maps, so the only way I would’ve known about it is by walking up here and figuring out for myself! It was such a beautiful spot where you can look out and see everything, and having the cross there was also very significant because Cruz de Ferro, which I passed a few days earlier, was meant to be this big cross and this big significant point the Camino, but I found it pretty underwhelming. In a way, this spot that I found today was like my own version of Cruz de Ferro. It was much close to what I had imagined it to be like.
I think having stumbled upon the spot is analogous to many things in life. You don’t know what’s going to be at the end of the road, but sometimes, you can see a really tough journey. Maybe it’ll be worth it to do the hard thing and maybe it won’t be, there’s no way to know. In this case, going up that super steep hill was very worth it, even though I had no idea what would be waiting for me up there. But honestly, it was so beautiful and was one of the highlights of my entire Camino, and probably my favorite spot I had been so far. I got about an hour to myself up there to sit and reflect, and it really felt like I had discovered my own little hidden gem of the Camino.
Eventually, I came back down the hill and went back into O Cebreiro, and walked into town and ran into Mark, Liz, and Santiago again. They let me know they were having an early dinner at 6pm and it was nearly time, so I went back to the albergue to get changed and check on my laundry, and then went to dinner. Mark and I showed up on time, but Liz and Santiago were both late so Mark and I walked around a bit, looked in a gift shop, and ended up just getting a table. Liz and Santiago showed up eventually, and we all had dinner together which was quite nice. Mark had a huge bocadillo (sandwich), Liz had a large but very dry tortilla, and Santiago and I split an order of pulpo (octopus)!
We kind of had to rush dinner, because at 7pm there was a pilgrims mass we all planned on attending. We arrived right around 7pm and it was very full in there. We all ended up getting seats though, and it was a very cool mass. I didn’t understand a lot of it since it was all in Spanish, but at the end, the priest gave each of us a stone with a Camino arrow on it, and did a prayer in each of the languages that everyone spoke. Speakers of different languages all went up and read from the book, and it was a very cool service.
After mass ended, Liz and I went back to the albergue to get changed and grab some wine she bought earlier in the day, and we ran into Santiago as well. We had all planned to go to the top of the hill in town and have wine at sunset. We saw Mark as we were heading up, and we all went up to the picnic tables at the top of the hill. Santiago, Mark, and I ended up taking a trip to the bigger hill where the cross was, and it was so unbelievably beautiful at sunset.
We all sat up there and watched the sunset, and it was beautiful, although a bit chilly. Gil, someone the rest of them had met at an albergue the other night, came and joined us. The wine they got from the grocery store earlier was from 2005, had a lot of sediment, and it certainly wasn’t the best wine, but we were sharing it with a great group of people. Eventually, it got dark and too cold for Santiago, so he went back, and then soon after, Liz, Gil, Mark, and I all went back to the albergue as well. We ran into Santiago smoking a cigarette with some other Spanish people, and then we ended up all sitting in the kitchen of the albergue finishing the 3rd (and last) bottle of wine we bought.
It was so nice to chat and spend time with them, and even though we’re so close to the end, it feels like Mark, Liz, Santiago, and I have formed our own little Camino family. The time I’ve spent with them and the experiences we’ve had has been so meaningful and I feel so lucky to know all of them.
