17/6/22 Friday
We left at 0500 as we knew it would be a tough day. I was woken up by a couple of French people who managed to hog the 2 bathrooms for 25 minutes each. What was annoying to me was that when I finally got into the bathroom, the shower was dry. What had he been doing? Anyway I think my expression terrified him when he finally left the bathroom.
We had sent both packs on, as we were expecting a tough climb but an even more difficult descent. The scenery today was impressive going up to the Cruz de Ferro
The two photos above give an idea of how dark it was when we set off.
There are many people who have memorials placed on the Camino. Ruth did a check to see the death rate associated with the Camino. The 2017 statistics show an average of about 15 per year. Many of those are cyclists, not surprising given the speeds and bendy roads.
At one time there were many small villages up here. There's not much here now, only a few cattle, weari g cowbells, no crops, some tree plantations. Apart from that the only functioning businesses service the tourist trade, which is mainly the Pilgrims. Taxi Luis should get an honourable mention. Their stickers are plastered on any sign, lamppost or Albergue in the area. They do a huge trade ferrying people around, especially broken down Pilgrims.

And we came up to the Cruz de Ferro. This is the highest point of the Camino de Santiago. It is the place where you leave a stone or pebble that means something to you. That means you have to climb a mound of pebbles and mementos to place yours at the base of the cross. You also have to dodge the couples taking selfies of themselves next to the cross or leaving rocks with 'Hans❤️ Anya' on them. I know that it is 'Your Camino' but really..

Hippy encampment on the way.

We walked into this town, which, apparently, is an up and coming village, with houses being done up by rich people from Pomferrada. The houses appear to be rather run down but have first floor balconies or overhangs jutting into the street.

I'm not really sure about that. However, we did bump into, separately, Marianne and Micha.
We ended up walking a long way with Micha. The journey downhill was a real bastard of a walk. It was all loose rock and shale over a base of smooth rock. It was steep, with a big drop to one side. But the scenery was stunning. I was too worried about falling to take many pics.

And we're counting down...

We were staying in Molinaseca. This was quite a picturesque town. Micha was walking through, so we grabbed a beer. They had dammed the river a bit to allow swimming. It seemed lots of end of term school parties were here.

Obligatory bridge shot.

Kids swimming in the river.

New beer. Nothing special.

While we had a drink, the Stepford Twins passed by. A surreal moment as the guy on the left in the picture was trying to engage the guy with his back to us in any sort of conversation. But it was a car crash. And the Stepford Twins walked by...
Jurgen the German walked by and stopped for a drink.
As we sat there, the rain storm that had been threatening all day kicked off. It soon turned into hail stones!
We were talking about all kinds of stuff. Then he mentioned that he was a Creationist. Bit of a conversation stopper. But we rallied and started discussing it. He acknowledged that it was hard to talk about what he thought with anyone, as he was immediately dismissed as mad. He stayed at the bar to eat chicken and chips. We went to El Bordón,the best restaurante in town. We had previously ordered a special rice dish with boletus mushrooms and scallops. We were served a cauldron of the stuff. It was nice, a bit too salty and the scallops were wasted in the dish. We also asked for tempura vegetavlssbut, apparently, the chef advised a plate of cured pork loin. We went with that.
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