August 28th

Through Rabanal to Cacabelos
Cold, very cold, an unfamiliar feeling for the first time in weeks. No warm breakfast, just a banana and peach washed down by some water as I worried about my shin in the dark, also hoping I didn’t lose the trail before the sun came up. After a while I came across a Swiss girl who was totally winded. When I asked if she was alright she just nodded which brought back memories of my first day in the hills. A couple of hundred yards up higher and I found two of her friends resting. They said it was only their second day. By daylight I had climbed through the village before Foncebadon with its old stone and rough hewn timber huts and was walking along the high ridges surrounded by deep valleys in which pools of fog formed and laid giving a rather surreal feeling and truth to the name Misty Mountains. This is where Shirley MClaine and Paul Coelho go all airy fairy in their books and its easy to see the attraction to succumbing to their flights of fancy. After a couple of hours I came to the cross at Foncebadon where everybody leaves a stone from your home country. As if, I would have jettisoned it a long time ago in aid of lighting my load. I stop in a village for a coffee and bun where I chatted with some Portuguese hikers doing a one week segment. They were all familiar with Toronto and seemed to have relatives there. Mid morning found me in a steep descent to Ponfferrda and I really started to notice that going downhill was harder on my shin than going up. I had been advised to stop in M but I was there before noon and so I pushed on into Ponferreda past the huge dominating castle of the Knights of the Templar and realized I couldn’t get a shot of the whole thing. The man in the info booth said 12 kilometre to the next albergue so I took him at his word and soon discovered he was off by at least half. I struggled through the hot afternoon sun on a flat section and finally limped into Cacabelos at 5pm a total of 51 kilometres, what was I thinking, besides they shoot horses don't they.I found the albergue which was quite unique to others. The church had a wall around it and built into the wall on the inside where chambers two beds to each which was quite an arrangement. I got my bag ready for a quick exit in the morning and fell away into IPod land with Jim White.
To be continued