Day forty - Saturday November 27

Departed: Hospital de Órbigo 8am
Arrived: Rabanal del Camino 4pm
Total hours: 8
Total kms: 37
Accumulated kms: 1282.8
Weather: Sunny and cold

Well, the big snow storm that our hospitalero promised didn't hit, and it was sun, sun, sun all day. You wouldn't know it from the temperatures, but that's what I had. There's still talk of snow for either tonight, tomorrow or Monday, but with any luck it will miss us. I'm nearly at the top of the mountain now, I think there's about another 350m to climb first thing in the morning, then right down to a low altitude, and nothing to worry about snow-wise for about another three days or so. At that time I'm supposed to walk up another mountain to a town called O Cebreiro, but I've heard that that's already under snow. Whatever, there's a cheat way around that one so no big deal if it is.

Today was a much nicer walk than I've had lately, further away from the highways and roads. A lot of it was through scrubby bush with snow capped mountains so close I could almost touch them. Well, not that close, but they looked nice.

Filipe and I walked together for the first bit, and up in the hills before we reached Astorga, we came across a big old barnhouse with a little stall set up in front. The stall was full of juice, coffee, fruit, nuts, cookies, jams and other things - all organic and offered for a small donation! The guy who runs it, David, came out to have a chat and was such an amazing guy. He left Barcelona a year and a half ago to come and do this, and has never looked back. He gets a lot of joy from offering things up to people, he also lets people sleep there for free if they need to. He looked so healthy and happy, it was a nice little injection of inspiration along the way.

This computer is set up outside at the albergue I'm staying at, and my fingers feel like they're about to snap off in the cold, so I think I'll leave it there. With more luck I'll get across the rest of the mountain without any troubles tomorrow, and the computers at the next albergue will be set up right in front of a working heater. Oh, dreams are wonderful things...