Camino : O Cebreiro to Sarria

I was amazed at myself to get on the road by 4:45AM. It was a dark, starry night.

As I walked in the cloudless sky, I pulled out my Sky Tonight app and could see many constellations, including the Ursa major as well as Leo.

It was quite a hilly climb right from the start today. At least 3600 feet climb was expected in the 44 km I had planned for the day. Walking 5km, I reached the highest altitude in the area, and the low lighting made the picture above look quite interesting.

At dawn, I was happy to see the light break through and the trees in the vicinity started becoming visible.

The different phases of sunrise and its beautiful colors were heartwarming.

The Camino de Santiago mile markers were of a different design in the region of Galicia and the distance indicator was little bit indented with a black on brown design. It took a bit more squinting to see how far I had gotten, but it was good to know that only 150 km remained as of now.

The light was everywhere and I had reached Fonfria, it seems like a good time to take a breakfast stop in a nice looking bar connected to the Albergue.

I saw an Australian couple who were just going to start their walk from this point right at that moment. I compared their bright and shiny shoes to my dusty ones and remembered how shiny mine looked just less than three weeks ago.

I came across a Dutch couple from The Hague. We walked together for a bit, and they had a little slower pace than me, so I continued further. Part of the way now was very steep downhill with lots of loose rock.

As I was taking a picture of a mile marker, a young lady passed me by and we started talking. I learned from her that she ran a company with her partner in CapeTown, South Africa, which provided three trips in the shoulder seasons to the Camino only for the Afrikaans people. They also conducted tours of Namibia and Botswana. I had a good reminder of memories from my visits to those places.

As we approached Tricastela, I saw a very interesting ancient stone building.

The road was a little bit more hilly, but shaded and wooded.

Having seen a snake yesterday, I guess my brain was very vigilant for it, and I saw something that looked like a snake, but it was actually a bunch of caterpillars which were having some sort of a conference.

Sam, the South African tour operator, told me about the snakes in South Africa, notably, the Puff Adder and the Black Mamba. In her opinion, they are very venomous, but mostly dogs succumb to their bite and people can survive with fast medical attention. The Puff Adder’s mouth is small so it can only grab onto your ankles or small body parts to bite while the black mamba can strike anywhere. Or maybe it is the opposite. I have no plans to personally verify this information.

Sam had been on this route before. She showed me the oldest chestnut tree which was 800 years old.

After a short while, I reached Tricastela, which was the town before the turnoff to go to the Benedictine monastery named Samos.

I ran across Andy form Cour d’Aline, Idaho who had recently sold his nursing care business and started his Camino walk from France, something that he wanted to do since the Covid time.

The walk to the monastery added an additional 18 km to the hike, but I had heard the Gregorian chants of the Benedictine monks for a long time and I was very curious to visit their monastery. I decided to walk the additional part.

At Tricastela, the Main Street had good Pulpo and padron peppers. As I was enjoying it, I saw Daniel from France bicycle past. I had not seen him for the past few days. When I called his name, he stopped and was extremely surprised to see me because he did not expect that I would be walking the same pace as his bicycle trip.

I took a picture of an interesting pilgrim statue, and proceeded further.

I was at the spot where I had to make a commitment to walk the additional 18 km or just continue on the standard route. I decided to check out the monastery in Samos.

The route to Samos was quite hilly, but very green, always had a river flowing next to it, and it was a pleasure to walk in the shade of the trees.

The map below shows the two different routes one can take with or without Samos included.

It was quite a long day so far, but I kept pressing on.

Just when I could bear my thirst no more, I came to a small town with a nice looking bar. I discovered Andy from Idaho there. Also present was a couple from Lake Tahoe, California, of which, the lady was a nurse while the husband was a construction business owner.

We were discussing how each of us slept the previous night and Andy complained about snorers in the shared Albergue. I said that I didn’t care about snorers until I lost my one of my earplugs. Andy reached into his bag and gave me a few extra earplugs, so kind of him.

The countryside was continuing to be very green and pleasing to the eye.

Also present were many different colorful flowers.

In many places, I saw the construction of roof made with some material that looked like slate, and the tiles were semi circular in shape.

The dense forested area continued until I could get a peek of the monastery in a short distance.

A few kilometers of steep walking finally lead me to the monastery, just as Andy was catching up to me from behind.

The monastery was spectacular, it was a very hot day, and I had initially thought of spending the night there. I found that the monks provided a tour of the monastery and the first tour was at 4:30 PM, in about a couple of hours. I decided to enjoy some wine and get a rest for my feet until I waited for the tour.

While waiting, I struck up a conversation with a couple sitting next to me and they happened to be from Buenos Aires, Argentina. They were bicycling the whole Camino Frances in about 10 days or so. They covered almost 60 to 90 km a day. They told me about a website called bicigrinos.com that anybody could use to rent bicycles from point A to point B on the Camino.

The monastery tour started at 4:30 PM and I could see the beauty of the whole monastery up close, it was founded in 1880.

The monk providing the tour was speaking in Spanish, and I picked up a little bit of it, but he was a native, fast speaker. I did notice the place where the lepers used to be treated and the pharmacy used to dispense the medication.

Many walls on the first floor had murals which depicted a long story, and I did not understand the nuances of the story, but I took lots of pictures as the murals looked really fantastic

The construction of the monastery, the sanctum sanctum, and the various alters were very beautiful.

The stained glass window was very luminous in the dark background.

At about 5:30 PM, after the tour concluded, I wondered if I should stay or continue to the town of Sarria. I took some pictures of sculptures and kept going.

The destination was still close to 150 km. Getting to Sarria was another 15 km, and I was very tired. Faced with the prospect of climbing 1000 feet and walking 10 miles was pretty daunting, but I kept taking one step at a time.

The route was steep, but green and beautiful.

Small towns were visible in a distance.

The lush green everywhere was mesmerizing.

A river accompanied the path throughout.

I took a picture of this beautiful house and kept walking for about half a kilometer and a car passed me by. The driver stopped and said I was going in the wrong direction and need to turn back.

The walk was a long slog and I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

The city of Sarria was visible in a distance, but it did not seem to come any closer no matter how long I walked. The setting sun had painted the sky in many beautiful colors.

At long last, almost at about 9:40 PM. I was in Sarria and it seemed like a very big place catering to the pilgrims. There were lots of restaurants and hotels everywhere.

The municipal Albergue that I wanted to go to, and had confirmed with the official as having a spot for me, was still a bit further walk.

I was surprised that to get to the Albergue, there was a steep, huge stair to be climbed.

I finally hobbled to the front desk and told the manager of my 51 km walk to reach the Albergue. She took pity on me and gave me a private room for €10. I had no energy to go get any food and just called it a night.