This would be the greatest day of walking and finding nature's hidden treausres.
We had a wonderful night last night in the family run albergue of St Vicente's!
Pedro would wake up and make us breakfast ( part of the fee here) and would walk us up to the church for a great view. So last night there were only five pilgrims at our place....myself and four really nice guys. York from Germany, Sebastian from Germany, Benjamin from Belgium and the young doctor from Poland. he kept reminding me he was still in school and not yet a doctor BUT for some reason I turned my voice into Jerry Seinfeld's mom and had to call him " the doctor" in her classic NYC Jewish mom voice, all impressed etc....
Sebastian, Benjamin and I would walk together...
Sebastian broke off for a cup of coffee before we did so we would miss him for the rest of the day.
I think it was Colombres where we crossed the Rio Deva ( river) and were eager to have coffee....I'm glad we held out till after the bridge as we found a great spot, cross the bridge to the right with a graphic of a fisherman I think. I have learned to ask for a grande cafe con leche or I get a small one.
There is a town called La Franca that appears to be going thru some major highway work, a huge bridge is going in and a tunnel. Today could be oossibly the most beautiful walk or the most boring pending what you do here. We had bought some items to make a lunch and were lucky to come down off the road coming out of La Franca and looking for a great place to sit and eat. I saw a car parked on the side of the road and between that road and the Ocean were almost dunes of rock, sand and yellow flowers. Upon seeing the empty car I suspected they had parked and entered this dune area so we searched for this opportunity. Lucky formus there was a small chance to hop in there, crossing a railroad track and entering where a sign is. Benjamin and I were the only pilgrims from where we stayed tonight who saw this opportunity. We sat out on the high cliffs overlooking the. Ocean. About ten minutes into our walk after lunch he noticed he was missing a stopper on one of his walking sticks..I was gladly willing to retrace our steps to try to find it, we didn't.
Deep in the dune area Benjamin saw another pilgrim waving to us from the road, we thought it was Sabastian and waited for the person to cross on into where we were, when they didn't we assumed they chose to walk alone. Amazing natural sights on this walk the first being a huge hole in a rock. About an hour later we were skirting the road but still on the Oceanside and we concluded the pilgrim we had seen earlier was not Sebastian but York, I heard him singing and yelled out, " York is that you????" At which he didn't hear me but Sebastian told me that was " such an American thing to do". Feeling slightly sheepish for being so loud all of a sudden I hear, " Amigo's is that you? ".... Louder than my attempt....it was York so I guess that was " such a German thing to do". I quickly realized we could say little pokes and just keep inserting different country names if we wanted to....
We got York thru the brambles and he wiuld join us for what would be the icing on the cake of this walk. We woukd stumble upon a huge rock arch....a beach within these dunes where water runs under the cliffs and had actually formed a beach with the dunes....and....a tunnel/ cave that lead to the Ocean. There was a man getting his picture taken in a hole in the griund and I said, what is he doing? What does he know that we do not?"....he told us it led to the Ocean. The boys were hesitant to go as it involved leaving our backpacks there BUT I urged them to do it and it was marvelous. Lije most of my adventures this trip I was convinced I was the inly one to ever enter this cave when coming at us was lije 20 headlamps....and coming out of the cave was lije 20 more getting ready to descend. We were low to the ground and I captured pictures the best I could.
Now all we had to do was find Sebastian!
York said he had run into him and thought he was going to stop one town shy of our original goal....so we all went there and were going to contribute what he paid to get him out and to come with us. it was closed but he left us a note that he was proceeding to our orignal place....
We would stumble on a gem of an auberge! Run by Javier whose parents were in town helping him this place was true Camino spirit....great dinner, great drinks....music that woke you....breakfast and a sweet send off....LOVED this auberge!!!!
What a day!
I hope the pictures do it slight justice....
No comments:
Post a Comment