Astorga to Ponferrada

Encarnita and I are now back home but intend to continue posting day by day, as if we were still walking. It will be our Camino but with a time delay.

We last left you as we were leaving Astorga, heading for the Bierzo region. Getting there took three days as the trail climbed the Montes de Leon to a height of 1500 metres, before dropping back down to Ponferrada. The route is marked by small villages, some with permanent populations of only twenty souls, others abandonned. The countryside is often empty and the hills are covered with broome and heather.



On the way up the pilgrim passes through the Maragateria, a region whose people were muleteers and traders, carrying goods between the ports of the north Atlantic coast and the middle of the country. Their traditional dress and elaborate jewellery may go back to the original Celtic peoples. Their traditional meal is curious, not for what it contains but in the sequence of its dishes. The meal begins with the heaviest course--a variety of boiled meats--and works its way through to the lightest plate--a soup. It is sufficiently heavy going that the restaurants serve it only at the midday meal. The village houses and passage ways display beautiful stone work. Great pride is taken by the people of the Maragateria, and the two figures that hammer out of the hours on the Astorga city hall clock are Maragatos.



































Rabanal del Camino was a large Knights Templar settlement in the early middle ages. These knights were the police of the Camino, protecting the passing pilgrims against bandits and nobles who were well versed in the arts of extortion. Eventually the Templar order became suffienctly wealthy and powerful that they represented a challenge to established authority and were forced to disband as an order. In Rabanal a small community of monks is today attempting to establish itself. In the town's twelfth century church they perform mass in gregorian chant, but they are not numerous and their voices not strong.

Albergue at Rabanal del Camino

On the way into Rabanal a small memorial consisted of three e-mails hangs from a fence. The first message was from a young pilgrim thanking a hospitaler who had helped restore the pilgrim's mind and body, but asking if the hospitaler had resolved his own health problems. The second e-mail was a reply from the hospitaler informing the young pilgrim that when the season was over and he had returned home, the hospitaler had been diagnosed with advanced cancer of the stomach. The third e-mail, a response from the pilgrim, was an expression of pain and consolation, of frustration that he could do nothing for his new friend.

The tall, iron cross at Foncebadon on the top of Mont Irago is a landmark. Pilgims traditionally deposit at the foot of the cross stones they have brought with them from their places of origin. The stones represent their worries and problems, which are left behind with the stones. Encarnita brought two stones each, one for Spain and one for Canada.
























By now we were well up into the mountains and the vistas were far and wide. The hillsides were aglow with purple heather and yellow broome.


At El Acebo we stayed in a beautifully restored stone house that had been converted into a bed and breakfast. The Spanish government provides financial help to those who will restore family property and put it back into productive use. We were quite glad to be staying there, not only because of the attractiveness of the accommodation, but also because we talked with an Australian couple who were walking the Camino with their fourteen month old baby and staying in the albergues. No matter how relaxed the baby looked during the day, it undoubtedly would spend some nights wailing.

Good sleep or interrupted sleep, the sunsets at this altitude were spectacular.





























On the way down to Ponferrada in Riego de Ambros we encountered a cat that looked more like a lynx than a domestic animal: a big body, a long tail, and whiskers about both its ears and its paws. Very obviously more than house cats were to be found in its family tree. As we completed the final descent into Ponferrada we were welcomed by garden after garden resplendent with beautiful roses, huge blooms in many colours. Obviously the climate agreed.



Ponferrada, as the name indicates, was named for its iron bridge and was for its known its iron works in the Roman times. It too had experienced the presence of the Templar Knights, as was evident from the huge castle they left behind.






Templar Castle, Ponferrada







It was more the Inquisiton, however, that caught Encarnita's attention. After checking into our hotel we strolled about the town. Encarnita struck up conversation with a foursome, consisting of two couples, both local, one older and one younger. It soon became apparent that the younger male was being sized up by the senior female as a potential boyfriend for the younger woman. As the interview proceeded, Encarnita found herself caught right in the middle. The older male and I enjoyed the dynamics as Encarnita sought to extricate herself.







The Inquisition in Progress






The next morning our neighbour and fellow pilgrim, Gillian Stoker-Lavelle, caught up with us and would walk with us for the following two days. She had started a week earlier than we did, but three hundred kilometres back of us in France. A couple of days later she would leave us and forge ahead, to reach Santiago three days before us. Obviously our paces differed.