TEN WEEKS ON THE CAMINO: Nick Stark suffers a little as he savors the last quiet leg of his quest before the hordes of Sarria
The long walk from the French border near Biarritz to the northwestern Spanish town of Santiago de Compostela is a stretch of about 480 miles, marked by three distinct geographical regions. After toiling over the Pyrenees on day one you descend towards the green hills of Navarra, marked by forests, streams, rolling farmland, fields of sunflowers and increasingly as you enter Castille and Leon, vineyards. After about 100 miles you start on the long flat plateau of the Meseta, which stretches a further 215 miles, with Logroño at the eastern end and Astorga to the west.
For the final 165-odd miles you pass through the wine region of El Bierzo and cross into Galicia. At the junction of the two is a cluster of smallish mountain ranges including the Montes de Leon and the O Courel and Os Ancares ranges. This is an area of outstanding natural beauty with several popular nature reserves and biospheres benefitting from the wetter and cloudier weather, due both to higher elevations and proximity to the Atlantic, with various weather systems coming off the Bay of Biscay. For the peregino (pilgrim), this means gorgeous but arduous uphill hikes through forested uplands. And rain. Lots and lots of rain.
But after you negotiate two demanding uphill sections you descend into the town of Sarria and are rewarded with an easy final 75 miles into Santiago de Compostela.
But perhaps rewarded is not the right word. The vast majority of pilgrims carry with them the credencial, a type of passport in which you collect stamps from your travels and upon presentation of which at the Pilgrims office in Santiago you will receive a Compostela, a certificate (in Latin, no less) that you have completed your Camino. But in order to receive this you only have to walk the final 100km of the Camino, which typically means starting from Sarria. The fact is that most folks can’t take six weeks to walk the whole thing and have a week or perhaps ten days to ‘do’ a Camino, meaning that fully 75% of those who complete their Camino only do 100km, descending on Sarria en masse. The town and the road quickly becomes jammed with schoolchildren, religious groups, sullen German teenagers playing rap music and overweight surburban moms from Ohio sporting inappropriately snug-fitting athleisure wear, all of them full of high spirits, shrieking with laughter and, it seems, possessed of a lamentable absence of spatial awareness for the rest of us, blocking the narrow lanes for minutes on end to take just the right selfie for Instagram.
In some circles these newcomers are called ‘touregrinos’, a hybrid of the Spanish word for tourist and pilgrim. It is not a compliment. But the Camino does teach patience. And acceptance. And though the change in the hike’s vibe at Sarria was jarring, the reality is that everyone does their own Camino, and we have to accept that. Even us old lags. Still, it was hard not to look back wistfully at the long stretches behind us with endless paths stretching infinitely into lonely skies with barely another pelegrino in sight from one village to the next.
All that was ahead of us as we left Molinaseca and headed towards Villafranca 22 miles down the road. As the town petered out and the tarmac gave way to dirt roads we clambered slowly up through forests of chestnut and oak before reaching town, an unremarkable spot whose main attractions were the impressive Iglesia de San Francisco which dominates town’s approach and the restaurant Meson Don Nacho, a classic place right out General Franco’s era, where we were the only non-locals tucking into some very traditional dishes including pimientos asados del Bierzo (Bierzo-style roasted peppers), steamed white asparagus, Caldo Gallego (a very popular Galician soup) and Fabiada Asturiana (Asturian style red beans stewed with chorizo, blood sausage and bacon).
Suitably fortified by such belly-filling treats, we headed out in steady rain the following day for a 12-mile slow uphill trek to Las Herrerias, the last village before a steep incline into the Os Ancares mountains. We stayed at the Paraiso del Bierzo lodge, which, as my daughter might say, was giving a total golf club vibe, full of oak beams and wrought iron and quiet affluence as it sat at the entrance to the village, perched above a grassy field full of local Galician cattle.
The conditions only worsened the following day. We had 18 miles ahead of us with steady rain turning to an endless downpour and thick fog as we plodded up to the charming mountain hamlet of O Cebreiro and the last real peak of our Camino. Locals here offer horseback rides to the summit, which for us walkers meant that in addition to negotiating rivulets of rain runoff on the already slippery slate and clay path, we also had horse manure to negotiate. We had both donned our hikers’ ponchos which fit neatly over our backbacks but had the drawback of turning into a sail if the wind caught you just right…which it did, repeatedly, almost knocking us off our feet more times than I can remember.
O Cebreiro is considered a highlight for many pilgrims and we were sorely tempted by the blackboard promises of hot soup and pulpo a feira (boiled octopus) outside several restaurants and albergues, but we had to press on, so we settled for a quick and warming cafe con leche before pressing on over the nearby peak. It was only 4500ft, but given the difficulty of the terrain and conditions, it felt much higher.
As readers of this series will know, the downhill sections are far tougher on the knees, ankles and connective tissue than the uphill climbs, and the trail brought forth from us all sorts of oohs, aahs and more colorful Anglo-Saxon language as we descended towards Triacastela. As afternoon wore towards dusk the rain finally abated, but as we neared our albergue we had to deal with two large herds of cows being led towards their stables for the night. Yes, we really were walking till the cows came home. Like most of their breed, Galician cows are docile and agreeable animals, but they do like to take a certain side of the lane, the side which is flatter and more well-trod. Which for us meant moving to the other side, where we stood ankle deep in mud, puddles and manure waiting for them to pass. It was not the most glorious of experiences.
But there’s always a reward at the end of a good day’s walk, and for us it was the rustic Albergue Altrio, a sturdily built place of local stone and large wooden beams, and just around the corner from the Complejo Xacobeo a jammed local restaurant, where a huge dish of steak frites and a bottle of their cheap and lusty local wine certainly took the edge off for about $24 for two.
The next day was an easy 11-mile jaunt to Sarria where we booked into an albergue by the river and spent the evening exploring old town. We knew to expect a wave of touregrinosfilling the place, but even so, their sheer volume and their giddy, demob-happy mood surprised us. They outnumbered the locals by at least ten to one. We enjoyed a quiet glass of wine before bedtime and looked at each other knowingly. From here on out, the Camino would not be the same.
Next week: Sarria to Santiago. And the end of our Camino.
