Negreira to Santiago 11/30/23

 Hola!

Dennis thought it would be funny for you to see me sitting on my suitcase to close it. I will comment that his suitcase is bigger (and heavier) than mine. I never sit on this suitcase that it doesn't make me think of my Mom. Back in the 60s and 70s, when Samsonite was the best luggage, my Mom and I both sat on a few suitcases. That was the the advantage of hard sided luggage. And in those days, the airlines didn't have weight restrictions.  In fact, she once hid a cast iron skillet in my suit case. I still have it.

To the manor born.

The trail was just beautiful. If you look closely, you can see Dennis approaching the archway under the bridge.

I have seen so many kinds of mushrooms and toadstools on this trip.  These were bright orange.

The River Tambre over the areea's most significant bridge at Ponte Maceira.

This woman was pitching hay into a wagon.  It made me think of a ryhme that my Mom taught me as a kid, probably came from her mom.

Old man Norton went to town,

 a riding on a bale of hay.

Hit a root and let a toot,

and blowed the hay away.

It used to make me howl with laugter.  Try it on those 5 year old grand kids or greats as the case may be.

Dennis and I came down this loooong steep hill and then I saw the sign for the people going up it.  Glad I was on the down hill.

Another one of these baskets.  I finally know how they work.  They are Christmas baskets and you buy a ticket from the bartender.  I have only seen them in bars so I am not sure if they sell them other places. When a certain lottery date rolls around, you buy a ticket and if you have a ticket with the same last two numbers as the winning lottery ticket, you win the basket.

Imagine that it is almost December and so many beautiful blooms line the streets and trails.

Dennis and I stopped in this bar for a Coke - Zero and some lunch.  

This was just half of the Bocadilla with a French Omelet with cheese.  I love these sandwiches.  Of course, it depends on having really good bread and farm fresh eggs.

The muriel across from the bar.  Another woman pilgrim.

And of course, a man pilgrim portrayed as St James.

Dennis crossing the little foot bridge over a stream.  What concentration.

Our final goal - the Santiago de Compostela.  We are still 2 miles away.  Dennis' total distance was over 15 miles and mine was 18.4.  I kept hiking ahead and them circling back to make sure he didn't get lost. I will say that he has done very well, especially for someone who's first love is bridge.  As you might guess, distance hiking is my passion.

We are back in the beautiful Paradore Hotel.

We had a wonderful dinner at Abastos 2.0, a Michelin starred restaurant.  

Our first course was an empanada with chicken and herbs.  The crust was almost like a pie crust - a really good pie crust. We thought this might be our favorite course.

Until we got the tacos.  The tacos were beef and onions and some magic ingredients.  They were so good we ordered two more and skipped the main course.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  I know why this chef got a Michelin Star.  These weren't just tacos - no Taco Bell in these - they were fabulous.

Next we had another kind of empanada.  This one had two little fried disks with hake and mystery vegetables.  My - oh - my!  Not a crumb left on either plate.  And of course, as good as this meal was, we had to have dessert.  We slurped it up so fast that I forgot to take a photo.  Our dessert had two cigar shaped pastries filled with a cream substance - thicker than whipped cream.  Then we had two large slices of apple which had been treated with nitrogen gas (?) to freeze them.  They were cold and tart with a hint of fall spices. Clearly one of the two best meals of the trip but hands down had the best dessert.

And so ends another long walk.  I am always thankful that God keeps me from being permanently lost both on the trail and in life.  He gives me strength and endurance just when I need it most. Somehow he always leads me back to the correct trail, often with more than one detour.  Detours provide the most valuable lessons and sometimes that lesson is humility because, truly, none of us do it alone. 

God bless you all! 

A Picota Mazaricos to Negreira 11/29/23

 Good morning or afternoon, as the case may be.  Here we are in rainy, rainy Spain.  Although it practically killed me, we took a taxi today.  !00% heavy rain predicted with high winds. Boohoo!

I walked around Negreira with my umbrella, or brolly as the Brits call it, passing this statue of a woman with two oxen.  This is a rural farming area, and I took it as a tribute to the hard-working farm women.  I could find nothing online to explain it.

We have seen numerous Black Friday Sales here.  Our black Friday starts the day after Thanksgiving, but there is no Thanksgiving in Spain, at least not as we know it. Here, it started about a week later than ours.  What fascinates me is that it is in English; otherwise, it would be called Nigra Viernes.  Clearly, the Spanish have bought into our American consumerism.

Dennis and I headed to the bar for our happy hour wine, and they gave us each a bowl of pasta with seafood.  I was not hungry since I ate a whole roll of Filipinos, my favorite cookie for lunch.  Not so healthy, but dang, they tasted good. We played in a bridge tourney on line and scored terrible.  Oh, well, the wine was good. 

We started with our favorite ensalada mixta.  Soooooo good because it is so fresh.  

I had this succulent roasted chicken with the perfect gravy.  It was so tender it fell off the bone.  I love roasted chicken but it not something I do well. That is what they have Cosco for but this was a whole new level, roasted instead of rotisserie.  Oh, and those little potatoes squares were much better than patatas.  They were crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside fried in something real and tasty.

Dennis had fried hake but he eyeballed my chicken jealously through the whole meal.  I did share a little bit, being the kindly wife who never finishes her dinner.  In fairness, I love those salads and I had some bread so I wasn't starving when the entee came. I would have given him some anyway.

We both ordered the flan. I was tired of taking photos of ice cream cake - as much as I love it. This was coffee flavored and really good.  Quite a compliment from someone who doesn't drink or like coffee.  Not a moral thing just a taste thing.

So until tomorrow - Good night and sweet dreams.

Cee to A Picota a Mazaricos 11/28/23

 

Hola!

Leaving Cee, I found this Pilgrim tribute.

The first part of today's 18-mile journey was forests and all up.  Pant Pant Gasp Gasp.

Stunning scenery, and I met several other hikers, all headed the opposite way.  Many - most people - walk to Finistere or Muxia and then take the bus back to Santiago de Compostela.

My map and the markers did not agree with what I saw.  My map (downloaded to my phone) insisted that I turn on a trail that wasn't there.  In fact, it chirped and told me I was lost.  I went rogue and walked parallel to where the phone erroneously insisted on.  It was a bit muddy, but I felt like a real pioneer.  I finally got back to the actual trail, and my phone map congratulated me for being back on it.  Things have changed for hikers from when I started in Europe more than 30 years ago.  I still prefer to follow the trail markers, but it is nice when I am not sure which way the markers mean. Well, at least, when the phone map is correct!

I love being out in the fresh air and farmlands.  And today was a nature lover's dream.  There was too much uphill for sure, but such scenery and vistas made it work worth it.

From Indo New York, "The Costa da Morte brings back from the Middle Ages the werewolf most feared by pilgrims, and it does so with a festival in his honor.  The Vákner, which is the name of the mythological being, will have its own musical event hosted by internationally renowned groups such as Luar na Lubre.  This intriguing beast that is trying to be recovered lived in the Dumbría mountains that separate the Xallas plateau and Fisterra, in the middle of the Jacobean Way between Santiago and this place known as the end of the world.  The legend of this being occurs just one year after the discovery of America, in 1493, and is carried out by a bishop from Arzendján, Armenia (now Turkey), who continued the ancestral route from the city of the cathedral to Fisterra.  The clergyman, named Martyr, assured in his testimony that he had encountered the beast during the tortuous path he took and narrated it in his travel notebook as follows: "We found the Vákner, a large and very harmful wild animal." His adventures caused great astonishment among the population: «How, they told me, have you been able to save yourselves when companies of twenty people cannot pass?» he wrote, adding that after that, he was treated «with the greatest consideration» and that he was taken "From house to house in admiration that he had escaped from the Vákner."  Interestingly, I am listening to "Relic" on my iPad about a creature brought back from a grave in South America who is killing people in a NY Museum.

I was lucky with today's weather.  There was an 80% chance of rain, and it was dry for the first 60% of the journey.  Just as it started to drizzle, I spotted this beautiful bar.  It was the first bar I saw for the first 10 miles.

Usually, I picnic on the way, but when I saw this little bar had Omelet Bocatilla, I couldn't resist.  The omelet is more of a French omelet.  It is very flat and not fluffy like American Omelets.  It is cooked in something yummy like duck fat or lard and served on this incredible bread.  It is one of my favorite meals in Spain.  And to top it off - Coke Zero.

Welcome to Dumbria.

Look how clear this water is.

I followed this river from high up in the mountains for a good part of the second half of the hike.

A trail tunnel.

A most welcome sign.  I know I am getting close to my hotel.  Mazaricos is actually like a county.

The Pilgrim tributes never stop, and I love to see them.  Spanish people are so friendly and welcoming.

Denis and I loved this appetizer.  I can't quite place the flavor, but it was familiar.  It was like cream cheese in texture but more blue cheese or goat cheese in taste.  There were four of them, and right after I snapped this photo, this one was gone, too.  I had a veal cutlet with fries, and Dennis had a pork cutlet with fries.  The fries here are not frozen ahead of time and are more like home fries. Irresistible.

We had a choice of yogurt with fruit or ice cream cake.  Guess which one we chose?  Was that even a reasonable question? 

I am exhausted today.  The trail kicked my fanny.  So I bid you goodnight.

Finisterre to Cee 11/27/23

 

Hola.  We are leaving Finisterra (English) or Fisterra (Spanish) en route to Cee.

Look at all the seagulls.  It looked like a party.

Dennis and I had to cross a small stream of clean seawater that was headed back into the ocean.  The water was about 16 inches deep.  There was no jumping across it. I finally accepted that my boots would be wet and crossed it.  Dennis didn't want to get his shoes wet, so he sought an alternative.  I hiked about a half mile, looking back periodically, and D wasn't progressing.  I walked back and could see him, so I walked further ahead. After about 2 miles of this back and forth, suddenly, there was no Dennis.  I couldn't imagine what happened to him. I must have looked so concerned that a man on the beach started to help me look.  Dennis had decided to walk through a bog of canes so thick that he had to strong-arm them out of his way, all because he saw a bridge in the distance.  At one point, his shoes sank so low that he thought he was in quicksand. When I finally found him, not only were his shoes wet, but his pants were wet and muddy. We wasted about 45 minutes, and I wasted about 2 miles of hiking. The moral of the story is that sometimes it is just easier to endure a little water than walk through the bog and scare your wife!

Walking along the beach today was glorious.  I love the sound of the waves crashing.

Looking close!. You can see this dog with a broom and a dustpan.  I assume this is a lost dog poster, and I hope he finds his dog.  Sounds like a clever dog.

Dennis is hot on the trail.

Beautiful inlets.

From the ocean side to the woodsy trail.  There was much up, but it was a good hike.

Entering the city limits of Cee, (population 7,712) where Hotel Larry is located. We made many bad jokes about staying at Hotel Larry before we arrived.  It was quite a nice hotel with very friendly owners.

The shell sign is located on this mosaic column.

A tribute to pilgrims overlooking the bay.  I am sure this pilgrim must be from Jamaica because of his build and his attitude. Mon.

Are you tired of seeing Galacian Soup photos?  This was the best of the soups that I have had.  This one had sausage and pork in it, and it was scrumptious.

I don't know what type of mushrooms these were, but they were amazing.  They were cooked in olive oil with a fair amount of garlic.  YUM!

Our last course was Merluza (Hake) with real fries cooked in something awful like duck fat or lard.  The fish was perfect.  I was too full for dessert, but D got a piece of chocolate cake, and I felt bad for him having to eat it all by himself, so I pitched in like any good wife should.  LOL

Until tomorrow.  Much love and prayers!