"and all the roads we have to walk are winding
and all the lights that light the way are blinding"
-Oasis
Woke up with the ominous feeling that it was going to be a bad day. My right ankle was still a bit stiff from the day before, but certainly still walkable. About 500m outside the albergue, I somehow managed to twist the other ankle. Yes, yes, I was watching what I was doing, but I was more concerned with not re-twisting my right ankle rather than my left. Anyways, as the pain hit, I had visions of my camino ending right then and there. But almost as quickly as it came, the pain faded. It's still a bit sore, but now that both my ankles are that way, it's kind of corrected my gait so that I'm not limping anymore. So much so, that I made the 9k through Sarria to Barbadelo in amazing time. Barbadello is an interesting village; everything made of stone, including the fences, in the middle of green, green grass and oak trees. It looks less like you would expect from Spain, and more like you would expect from Ireland (minus the burning cars and masked gunmen).
The trail into Portomarín felt longer than I expected, but somewhere along the way, I managed to pass the 100k to Santiago marker. Felt good, after having walked 651 or so. In the homestretch now, and I suspect I'll be there on the morning of the 20th...going to take a couple of "easy" days to finish the camino off.
Portomarín is an interesting city. The old city was flooded back in 1956 to make way for a man-nade lake behind a hydroelectric dam. The church, and some town monuments were moved from the floodplain, but most of the houses, as well as the bridge were left to be consumed by the water. For the most part, it's remained that way for the past 50 years, but with the drought that Spain's been dealing with for the past couple of years, the old town has again resurfaced. Gives the new town a weird sense of displacement; of being far, far too high above the river.
Tomorrow, on to Palas de Rei; a medium-range 24.5k walk. Should be a piece of cake.
No comments:
Post a Comment