Land of the Lost

At the risk of turning this blog about enlightenment into tales from the dark side of hostel hell, I must begin with a quick recap of last night's madness.  Despite my lack of fondness for our hostel upon our arrival, I was completely exhausted and quite content to finally lay my head down upon my rubber pillow under the Jesus skylight.  Shortly after someone turned out the fluorescent light around 10:30, the fun began.   The man on the lower bunk next to Brianna chimed in with what she called a "wet" snore. After you have been sleeping in a hostel for 22 nights in a row, you are uniquely qualified to categorize snores. This snore was rather disturbing to all in the room, but it was particularly disturbing to the man's bunk mate who decided to bang on the metallic bed frame (kind of like hitting a stop sign) whenever the snore reached a certain number of decibels in order to awaken the offending snorer. I dozed off and on to the alternating cacophony of "wet" snoring and metallic chiming.  It was then that the man with the plague began to play his part in the nocturnal insanity that was unfolding. Two beds over from me, the coughing began.  It was not a dry little cough that said, "Oops, I've inhaled a bed bug. Let me expel it."  It was more of a rib cage rattling, congested hack that screamed for serious antibiotics and a week in quarantine.  Those of us who sat upright for good parts of the night checking to see that this man was still alive, learned the pattern.  First, he writhed; then, he arched his back; next, he coughed and coughed until we were confident he was going to vomit.  Finally, he muttered something about Jesus and dozed off for a minute or two before repeating the entire scenario. I was pretty certain that I would wake up this morning to discover that he had expelled a phlegm-covered, slippery pink lung at some point during the night.

For better or for worse, having survived the nighttime adventure, we were ready to take the party to the trail in the morning.  It promised to be one of the toughest days of the month as we would have two very steep climbs and one steep descent. We opted for the scenic route, which meant we would not be walking along the road, but rather going up and over a mountain for 11 km before rejoining the road down below. After spending the first kilometer of our walk doubled over in laughter as we discussed the nocturnal nightmare,  we began the real climb in alternating mist and drizzle. Apart from the sound of our panting, it was peaceful as we climbed higher and higher out of the valley.  We eventually made it to the small town of Pradela where we found the one bar and had coffee before rejoining the road for a bit. 

Our map showed that we would take a steep path down to the right to keep us off the road for a little while.  We saw a path to the right that wasn't exactly marked, but we decided to take it anyway.  This is the part where we inadvertently decided that today was the day to forge our own "way." We went down a hillside so steep that none of us could fathom turning around to go back up, so we just kept going in hopes that we were really on the right path. We got wetter and wetter as the trail narrowed, and we walked through long grass and thorns. Eventually we found ourselves gingerly picking our way across a mud bog when Nolan slipped and fell, splitting open his knee (for the third time - same knee).  He lay in the mud on top of his backpack like an overturned turtle, crying crocodile tears and asking, "Why?Why? Why?"  Foster and Brianna, in a predictable display of sibling empathy, hopscotched over him and began taking a video of a slug.  I, in a typical display of motherly empathy and patience with this knee thing, said, "Get up out of the mud. You're just getting wetter."  Then, once I managed to get myself across the bog, I tended to the knee (again) with toilet paper, water, and another big band aid.  In the meantime, Foster and Brianna entertained themselves with the slug and took selfies in the rain.  

http://youtu.be/tVT4m01wUHs

Once that crisis was over, we carried on downward into a deep, damp forest that was beginning to look like a set from "Land of the Lost." That's when the trail just ended.  It was one of those trail ends that you think just can't be true - like if you look hard enough at the ground you can actually conjure a path out of the random leaves and pine cones that you see, when, in actuality, there's nothing.  Nada.  

Just as we were weighing the merits of turning around before this little adventure inadvertently turned into "Survivor Camino," and we found ourselves eating those disgusting, black, sausage-sized slugs, we spotted the road down below.  We bush-whacked our way in that general direction and came across two pilgrims descending a very civilized looking, dry dirt path.  They welcomed us back to the trail with friendly smiles, and we carried on our way. It was a long, wet adventure that made what should have been a 2 km downhill trot, into a damp 90 minute wilderness expedition.  We ate chocolate in the town at the bottom of the mountain to celebrate our self-rescue and read the guidebook a little more carefully for the upcoming stretch.

We found ourselves on the road again, mostly quiet roads leading from village to village.  The villages were close together, so it was an interesting stretch of walking with lots to see and plenty of options for refreshments. We stopped for lunch at a bakery that smelled amazing, but we still managed to end up with more of Spain's everlasting ham sandwiches. 

After lunch, we knew that we had a long afternoon of climbing in store for us.  The rain continued off and on as we began to climb. We officially crossed into the province of Galicia, which, true to its Celtic roots right down to its weather, was grey and misty, with green, green mountains and full, flowing rivers. 

Gone were the dry riverbeds of two days ago when we were laughing at the silliness of bridges with twenty arches which spanned tiny creeks flowing under a single arch.  Now the rivers are raging. The trees are coated in moss, and we have begun to feel as though we are growing mold ourselves (and the scent of Nolan's backpack just blends right in). 

After a few long, steep climbs into mountain villages, we finally arrived in O'Cebriero in driving rain at 5:30.  O'Cebriero is a mountain top village with stone buildings dating back to the 11th century, and its church is one of the earliest surviving buildings on the Camino.  

This afternoon, it was a misty, grey, windy, cold stopping spot, but, most importantly, it had beds available at the hostel. We were ecstatic to find that we had a room for just eight with NO bunkbeds.  Life's simple pleasures now include being able to sit upright in bed and not having to haul myself onto a top bunk. 

Foster, Brianna, and I ventured out for dinner while Nolan napped at the hostel.  We caught a few glimpses of the gorgeous valley below when the clouds parted for a few seconds at a time.  We have high hopes for some sunshine tomorrow. However, as I snuggle into my sleeping bag on my very own bed, my eyes are on the more immediate future. A quick, visual survey of our roommate situation leads me to believe that tonight may be the night that I get some sleep.  There are no early signs of the plague. It's nearly 10 p.m., and there has been nary a snore.  I'm feeling the luck of the Irish shining on me!