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| Pauline crossing a stream via a log |
We don't normally start the day with
breakfast but did today as it was included in the price of the stay. That had
us leaving at 6:30am and we were immediately faced with a steep path of rocks,
stones and gravel. It would have been difficult enough in daylight but it
was doubly difficult in the dark. It got me thinking about the wisdom of two
people our age, from the west of Ireland, trying to find our way by torchlight
in the morning darkness on a lonely path in a remote part of Spain and not a
house light visible in a 20km radius.
Because of the conditions we made a slow
start. One guidebook suggested we bypass the small town of Cañaveral. I wasn't
sure that we would find the correct turn off the path but in the event we took
a wrong turn, which turned out to be the turn for Grimaldo where we were
headed.
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| The "penitential" climb - much steeper than it looks in the photograph |
We knew we had a climb after Cañaveral but
it was steeper than we expected. I saw an almost vertical track ahead, but it
looked as if it had been prepared by a bulldozer yesterday, so I ruled that
out. I was wrong. I think someone, somewhere, said, "They want penance,
I'll give them penance!" It would have been nice to have had a bench to
sit on when we reached the top, but I suppose that would not have been in the
spirit of things.
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| Downhill through a pine forest |
We were rewarded with a pleasant, mostly downhill, walk
through a pine forest which offered some shade from the sun. Further down we
walked for about 5km through acres of cork trees to arrive in Grimaldi,
population 91 and no WiFi. Just outside the village we had to cross a stream by
balancing on a log which acted as a bridge.
Today's walk was 19.2km, which was the
longest predicted by any of the guidebooks. En route we again met up with Marie
Jose, the Italian man and the German woman. The five of us, along with a
Swedish man, a French man and another German woman stayed in the same albergue
and enjoyed the Peregrino menu al fresco. We also had a young Spanish man in the
albergue but he cooked for himself - after walking almost 50km in one day.
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