Camino walking: A Fonsagrada to O Cádavo, 8.5 miles, 5:42 hours, moving 3:15
Elevation: up 1480, down 1371, between 2175 and 3068 feet
Flights of stairs climbed: 133
Miles walked total per Wynette’s watch: 11.99. This includes walk to restaurant and grocery, etc. But we think it is a little too high.
This was another great day on the Primitivo. We started with a taxi to reduce the day to 8.5 miles. The views on the ride were amazing. We started at 3000 feet and you could see a think layer of clouds spread out in the valleys below, quite a sight. For the last mile we were in the clouds, that is, a fog.
The bars in Fonsagrada were not open when we left at 8:30 and per Google we thought there was a bar in A Lastra, the town where he dropped us off and we asked the taxi driver about it. He said he thought it was open and said he’d take us there. He had pulled off on the side of the road and proceeded to back up 150 yards on this narrow dirt road to the bar. We pulled up and the door was closed. A woman came out and he asked if they were open and she said “I guess so”, but with a smile. Clearly they weren’t open, but they let us in and made us coffee and we had a slice of homemade walnut cake. They were in the kitchen preparing things while we were there. The place was very charming. It was right on the Camino path and so they probably got a lot of pilgrim business. My guess is that they really opened at 9:30.
So we set out on the path, in the fog. The fog burned off over the first hour and we were treated with more spectacular views. This mountain country is so different from the coastal Portuguese Camino. There was a lot of up and down, as you can see from the elevation stats. The day got warmer as we walked and we started getting full sun. Mostly we were walking on mountain paths. We ran into some mud but it wasn’t too bad. We felt sorry for the pilgrims walking here last week when it was so rainy. We would not have been able to walk it in the rain, it would have been too risky. And we were especially thankful we switched to backpack transfer, me walking down the rocky paths with a full pack would have been dangerous.
After three miles we were ready for a break, it was already sunny and hot. We stopped at another old-fashioned bar. We asked about a tortilla (Spanish omelette type pie) and she didn’t have one but offered a ham and egg sandwich on their great bread. We shared one and it was excellent.
We got through the next 5 miles without much trouble. It was hot and there was a lot of up and down but we were well-fed and not tired. The nice thing about our short 7-8 mile days is that, even if it is hard, it is not that far and we have fun walking it.
We got into this little town and checked into our pension. We rested and then went down the road to a restaurant for a nice meal around 5 pm and we are still here doing this blogging and savoring our postres.
This doesn’t capture the fog in the valley very well. It was really quite beautiful. Photo taken from the moving taxi.They opened just for us.Walking in the fog after the taxi drove down into it and let us off.Finally above the fog again.
