April 13, 2018

Day 8 on The Camino

This morning we left by 7:00  and we were fortunate to have the town lights of Grandes de Salime  since none of us bothered to put on our headlamps!

It became light soon enough – we saw our impending doom! We have gotten used to the mud, but now we basically had to cross a very large field of swamp and it didn’t take long before we were all wet and muddy to our mid shins.   And that depth of water feature stayed with us for about the next 20 minutes.   Once wet, actually, you cease to care…

We walked through La Ferrara to Cereixeira where we found a bar just opening and a very friendly kitty.

We continued into Castro with its beautiful brick and colorful doors.

Though again today the walk would extend to the hilltop windmills, climbing from Peñafuente to Alto del Acebo, unfortunately the sweeping panoramas which we were promised were not to be seen as it was raining hard and foggy.

The route passed into Galicia  but the second half of the walk was less interesting, taking our group through El Acebo, Cabreira, Fronfria, Barbeitos, Silvela to our “Albergue Cantãbrico in A Fonsagrada.

According to legend, Apostle St. James was attended in this village by a poor widow and struck by her poverty, turned the village fountain’s water into milk.   It has been raining too hard to go see yet, but there is a sacred fountain “Fons Sacrata” remaining in town. Before becoming a place of Christian significance, it held a 4th century Roman station.