Hospital de Bruma to Sigüeiro - 5 Junio

The penultimate day of our stroll to Santiago. In terms of distance, the longest of our Camino Inglés journeys both in England and Spain. A mere 26km.


What a view….have you seen the light?

Following yesterday’s uphill 25k, my feet were not in good nick. Fortunately “Caring Cate’s Compeed Clinic” was open, and able to deliver enough running repairs to keep the old cart horse mobile. She really needs to think about a potential career in nursing!



We arose when it was still it was still dark, and managed to hit the road in the half light.  Moody, misty mornings are commonplace here in Galicia, but today nature served up a spectacular display. The mist shrouded the hills and woods, but the sun battled to get through The sun won, but the mist fought back. A battle that raged for nearly 3 hours. The only real winners were the early risers who witnessed nature at its spectacular best. Photography overload for me…. I make no apologies - “for what you are about to receive be truly grateful”……













We passed our first coffee stop opportunity as we hadn’t walked far enough to earn it. The place that we passed was immensely characterful with lots of statues, and a massive plastic dinosaur that resembled a cross between a Diplodocus and a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Bizarre, but fun.






The walking and countryside was by far the best so far. Stunning light, lots of shade, and every shade of green. That, of course, is not a colour you’d readily associate with the Spanish countryside. But this isn’t really Spain; it’s Galicia, the magnificent Gaelic outpost attached to the Iberian peninsula. In truth the locals seem far happier to be part of Spain than they did in the post-Franco era when we first visited here in 1990. 














The second half of the 15 mile route today offered nowhere to stop to buy food or drink so was always going to be a bit of slog. We chose to go the more rural route (as opposed to alongside a motorway). This proved to be a poor decision as “rural” didn’t offer the shade we’d expected. We stopped and tucked into the edge of a forest for a lay down before the final 6k push. Very chilled indeed! Plus a chance for blister monitoring. God bless her!



After that, it was a total slog in 29 degrees with virtually no shade. The Yang to go with the ying, or something like that. Nevertheless, we’re in Sigüeiro, and have 10 more miles to get to Santiago. Nowhere near the achievement of our previous walk there, but a creditable effort nonetheless- especially if you add on the Reading to Southampton bit we did in April. Alas, I’m sure this time there won’t be tears, but you never know! The Camino, it does special things.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Caucasus again

Image
Twelve months on from my first visit to the Caucasus region I’m heading that way again. Last time it was Azerbaijan and Georgia. This time it’s Georgia, and the perceived bad boy of the region, Armenia.     The one on the left is particularly popular with some of our thickest flags flyers! Why? You may ask. Well, the main reason is that I’m continuing my quest to have visited as many countries as I am years old. Current score on that front is 65, albeit by the dubious counting method of including countries that no longer exist. There are 3 of those; West Germany, Yugoslavia and Hong Kong. A more dubious methodology would include 2 more – Guernsey (could it count as a country?), and Kazakhstan, which I have skirted into on a vehicle, but have never actually set foot there. Anyway, for the sake of argument I’ll include the 3 “ex-countries”. So, the score sits at 65 which means I’m bang on target. Nevertheless, with another Birthday later in the year, I’ve got the chance to...
Read more

7th and 8th May – Getting to Georgia and a walk around Tbilisi

Image
Let’s start with a positive. The joy of a late afternoon flight leaving Heathrow meant that it was a breeze checking in and getting through security. The good people at Lufthansa weren’t striking this week (unlike 2 weeks ago when they nearly wrecked a boy’s football weekend in Bavaria) so, excuse the pun, I was off to a flyer! Ever since my truncated trip to Turkmenistan, I’ve become very wary about lack of sleep. As my onward flight to Tbilisi was effectively overnight, I took the opportunity of a very reasonably priced upgrade to Business Class for the flight from Munich. After about 17 free bottles of Franzischaner Weissbier, and several plates of free food in the Business Lounge I staggered onto the plane and slept like a baby until our 4am touchdown in Tbilisi. Alright, alright just 2 beers and a bowl of soup! And I didn’t sleep like a baby either. However, I did manage a couple of hours kip which undoubtedly helped. Obviously, in my less than deep slumber I dreamt longingly of...
Read more

Monday 11 May – Return to Tbilisi via Stalin’s birthplace

Image
I was awoken at 5.30 by the sound of heavy rain outside. By the time I eventually got out of bed an hour later it was still hammering down. Hardly ideal conditions for the challenging drive through the mountains and back down to Tbilisi. Also a timely reminder as to how lucky we had been with the excellent weather yesterday.   I was genuinely concerned about the journey back to Gudauri. Will there have been more snow and avalanches? Will there be hordes of HGV’s stuck on the perilous roads? Could the police have simply closed the roads? Well, I’ve no idea how they manage the traffic on this essential route but our journey up to, and over Jvari Pass (c7,000feet) was trouble free. Yes, it was a bit slow due to snow and ice, but we barely saw any vehicles coming in the opposite direction. We did pass a few queues of lorry's parked on the side of the road each stretching over a mile.     A few hundred metres past the peak of the pass we stopped at the Georgia/Russia Frien...
Read more