Monk in the Monastery August 30th
I didn’t rush out today but waited and got all my stuff together slowly, finally leaving well after the pack at 7:30 am. The trail picked up right outside the Albergue in the laundry hanging area and started off through the woods. I fell in with two older German women for a couple of kilometres both of whom were in their seventies. One of them was a sailor and told me how she and her husband had managed four years in the Mediterrian before her husband passed to cancer. She said out of a group of couples, ten sailor friends in all, only she and one older fellow were left. In summing up she basically said get while the getting is good. I left the two by the pilgrim statue a few kilometres from O Celibrio and fell in with the Estonian couple I knew Ain and Ille. They were travelling fast with plane tickets later in the week so after a morning espresso I parted company. I found a spot to change back into my shorts. Today had been an experiment the only time other than laundry I had worn long pants. I couldn’t wait to get back into my shorts even with the cool mountain air. The rest of the morning was a peaceful walk with long vistas of cultivated hillside pastures on the descent into Tricastela where I stopped at noon and had the local soup Galega and a beer. My choice now was a split with a high road and low road. The guide said the high road was shorter with a good view from the top of the Galician foothills. The lower route was almost 9 kilometres longer but described as an interesting river walk through pastoral fields and forests. It also ended at the huge Monastery at Samos which once held a spectacular library. I opted for the lower river road and it was everything promised. A glorious walking afternoon playing hide and seek with the sun as I tramped alongside rivers on trails with long walls built of slate and overgrown with green. A total Frodo Baggins afternoon. The major use other than Camino walkers was its use as a cow trail to move the herds from pasture to pasture. The trail was littered with cow patties in various forms of decomposition. Every once in a while you would enter a hamlet where everything was built of stone including the slate roofs. The trails and walls are ancient construction dating back a millennium to the 1000 AD period. Fortunately they are still a work in progress. I ended up limping into Samos around 4pm shin splint quite sore and found the Albergue in the Monastery. Mark in a Monastery! I could hear my teenage friend chuckling as Monk was my childhood nickname. I went through my usual routine, shower, laundry, bought some fruit for the morning and then paid an obscene price for a salad and beer at a restaurant across from the monastery. I retired to my cloister and spent the evening listening to Brian Eno and writing.