We made it -- at least the first day!!

Friday, May 25 -- Day 1 -- O 'Cebeiro to Triacastella

Well, today was the big day, we begin our hike on the Camino de Santiago.  The bus left our hotel in Villafrancha del Bierzo at 8:00 and drove us about 20 km to O Cebriero.  O Cebriero is the first town in Galicia (the northwestern-most province of Spain and is noted for a unique construction of homes and barns with round foundations, stone walls, and thatched roofs.  We looked around the town for a while, stopped for a cafe con leche' and then went into the church to get a stamp on our "credentiales".  

Each pilgrim caries a credential which you have stamped along your walk (churches, restaurants, hostels, etc.) to verify your progress.  You turn in your credential at the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela and they will issue you a  certificate for completing the camino if you have walked at least the final 100 km.  I got about 6 stamps today and will probably do that for the rest of trip because I have 8 pages to fill in just 7 days of walking.

Where do I start to describe this experience?  The hiking was great -- clearly marked paths, with various surfaces ranging from paved streets to cobblestones to mud to dirt paths.  We hiked through woods, in the open sun, along cow paths, along the highway (on the other side of the barrier) and through pastures.  Today was about 20 km (about 12 miles, if you don't do metric) and we finished in about 5 hours.

Our pace was pretty leisurely, and we stopped quite often to look at the cows (they all wear bells here, like in Switzerland) or the sheep or into churches to get a sello (stamp).  If you've ever hiked with me before you know the obligatory stops to look at various trees, shrubs, flowers, mosses, mushrooms, liverworts, etc. -- you get the picture.   We also stopped to refill water bottles from trail-side water fountains and we visited little cafes/mesons in hamlets of maybe only 5 houses for a cafe con leche.

The end of the trail was significant downhill walk for about 4 km.  You can measure distance easily because there are stone markers every km along the trail (we saw a few at 0.5 km marks, too) and they mark the remaining distance to travel to Santiago de Compostela.

Roy and Cynthia and I arrived in Triacastela about 3:00 and found the cafe that our bus driver had directed us to.  It is owned by the same man who owns the casa rural (farm house) where we are staying today.  We enjoyed the 10 Euro menu del dia (meal of the day) which included 2 courses, bread, wine/beer/water, and dessert.  It was fabulous and by 4:30 the whole group had arrived.    

We stayed in town until about 6 and came out to our casa rural.  It is a converted farm house and barn with 5 rooms and 3 apartments.  We are the only ones here and are enjoying it immensely.  A group of 4 folks walked back into town to pick up some groceries and we are just going to have tapas and wine here this evening rather than go back into a cafe in town.

That's all for now.  I"m sorry I can't post any pictures but Blogspot won't open any photos on my iPad.  You'll have to settle for the ones that I can post on Facebook, for now.