I was hoping for a little reprieve from the asphalt, but it just got worse. On Tuesday morning, I headed towards the mountains, on the so-called Camino de Santo Toribio, whose destination is a small monastery hidden in a valley. Its fame comes from the fact that it is the supposed home of the largest known piece of the True Cross. In 1994, my entire family kissed the fragment (or maybe one or two declined), but now they don´t allow that. In any event, Santo Toribio de Liébena has been my destination for the last few days.
Tuesday, a mere 28 kms, ALL on asphalt, and complicated by the fact that I was unable to leave my albergue until the late hour of 8:30. The hospitalero (guy in charge) insisted that I serve as interpreter as he blabbed on and on about the next stretch of the Camino that everyone else but me was going to be walking that day. So, with a late start and many kms of asphalt, I arrived at the albergue in La Fuente about 4 pm. If it weren't for the asphalt, I'd be raving about the walk, the scenery was just spectacular:
It´s a beautiful facility, tucked in a little mountain village in what used to be the school. A great kitchen, firm beds, hot water, in short, pilgrim luxury. Another peregrino showed up about 5, and I was happy not to be entirely alone for the night.
My feet were hurting on Wed, so I started out slow. After a couple of pretty serious ascents, maybe each one about 1,000 ft, I arrived at the top and could see my next destination, a small village about 3 kms below. But the camino had disappeared. After a good hour of searching, I took a rest and tried to consider options. From where I sat, I could see the high tension power line going down the mountain and saw that at the next post, the power line crossed what was definitely a path. So I figured I´d just bushwhack my way down the mountain following the power lines over head. Two hours later, I realized it was a very stupid way to go. I had spent a lot of the time sliding on my butt, which had left my pants in shreds.
I had also spent a lot of time pushing my way through prickly overgrowth (my body is now front and back entirely peppered with red dots and scrapes) and coming upon the occasional large drop-off which meant backtracking and reorienting. Finally, after about 3 1-2 hours, I had made it to my destination, and sure enough, there was the Camino! Fortunately, I could change into my other pair of pants to regain a minimal amount of respectability. But I had lost so much time, it was 3 pm by the time I arrived at that little town that was only 3 kms down in the valley from where I had been at about 10:30. And my hopes for visiting the lovely Santa Maria de Lebena church were dashed, unless I wanted to sit for an hour till they re-opened.
To make matters worse, I had lost both water bottles and my hat, so I was contemplating a 6 km walk in the sun with no water. But the bad luck didn´t stop there, I called the place 6 kms away and he told me they were full with a group of young school kids, so no room at the inn. That meant I would have 10 kms, mainly on the side of the road, to this lovely little town of Potes.
My luck got a little better -- a nice young man let me drink my fill of water in his garage and proceeded to give me a water bottle from a cycling race he had just competed in. It had the aftertaste of aquarius (Spain´s response to Gatorade), but it was cold and I was very thankful. The next few hours into Potes were absolutely beautiful, but a bit hairy on the side of a narrow mountain road, through a gorge alongside a river. Finally, it must have been about 5:45, I arrived at the municipal office with 5 minutes to spare in order to get the albergue key. Very nice albergue -- right next to the river, very well maintained, even if it is the old jail!
Not one of the camino´s more magical days. It is now Thursday, the next day, and I´m back from the monastery but more on that later.
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