Arrived: Vega de Valcarce 4:45pm
Total hours: 8.5
Total kms: 43
Accumulated kms: 1358.3
Weather: Sunny and cold
Another beautiful walk today. Most of the way was alongside a freeway, but it was one of those futuristic type freeways on stilts, so it was kind of above me. Next to me on the right was a smaller road that not many cars drove along, and beside me on the left was a fast flowing river. The path wound around and around through the valley of some very large and closely packed mountains, and most of the day felt quite dark, despite the sun being out and the sky clear. As the trucks tore past overhead it sounded exactly like thunder, so for most of the day I got to walk with the sensation I was in the middle of a dark thunderstorm without actually getting wet. If that's not the definition of awesome, I don't know what is.
I must confess, I got lost again today. But it wasn't my fault! Once again, some enterprising bar owners have covered a side road in official looking yellow arrows in order to lure naive walkers such as myself off the true path and 2kms out of the way to their cow poke little town to go to a bar that isn't even open in winter. I even had a feeling something was amiss, but stupidly neglected to check the map. It turned out to be a nice little detour, but on a day when I was already walking 41km the extra distance was very much felt later on.
I'm right now near the bottom of the final mountain to climb, which I'm hoping to go up and over in one hit tomorrow (it's down in the guide book as a two day walk, but I'm pretty sure I can do it in one). Early tonight it began snowing outside here, and I'll be climbing another 750m or so tomorrow. Filipe and I went into a farmacia (pharmacy) to ask about the weather earlier.
Me: Do you know what the weather is like tomorrow (he spoke a little English)
Him: Oh yes - bad. Very, very bad.
Filipe (in Spanish): Can we still walk up the mountain?
Him: something in Spanish
Filipe (to me): Um yes. He says it's still possible. But the weather is very, very bad.
The snow has stopped now and it's just raining lightly. I for one have high hopes as always, that good old blind optimism of mine working out for me once again. I figure it's not as high as the mountain we crossed the other day, and the night before was snowing much more than tonight, so I think I'll have no troubles.
Speaking of troubles, we're not sure what happened to our new Canadian friend Blake who was going to keep up with us. He quit smoking yesterday, and told us he'd meet us here tonight. Problems are 1) I think today was a much longer distance than he's been walking so far and 2) It's almost certain he would also have gone the wrong way because he didn't have any kind of map whatsoever. I think he probably had enough about 10km back and stayed at one of the albergues I passed, and possibly went on the hunt for a comforting packet of cigarettes. But I hope not. He seems like a tough kid, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him turn up here at 10pm, covered in snow and soaked through with a big grin on his face.
One other thing I thought of today. This has happened to me quite a few times, enough times to get me thinking about it. Often I've been walking along a road for close to an hour without seeing any cars traveling in either direction. Then, the road will narrow, the footpath will disappear, I'll step onto the road to keep walking and suddenly there's a tractor going one way and a bus coming the other, and all three of us come together at the same time, at the same point, in the most narrow section of road, and all of us have to slow down and manouevre about ourselves. After this, I won't see any more cars for close to an hour again. This has happened at least five or six times on the whole walk, maybe more. What does this mean? Do the lives of myself and the people in the other vehicles have some weird connection that requires us to meet in such odd circumstances? It's very strange. There might be a book in that somewhere.
The castle of Ponferrada.
Snow in the evening.
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