It’s been an extraordinary day. Forget anything that I’ve said previously about hard days – today beats them all into the proverbial cocked hat. Hills? Got mountains. Snow? Tick. Pain? Levels that would make a grown man cry – and did.

This is the story of the hardest day ever on the Camino.

We started out from our albergue at 8 o’clock, walked quite easily for the first 5 km, stopped for coffee, took a photo of a statue of a pilgrim

and continued through really lush countryside with lovely cows

with bells. Very pleasant to the ear but surely insanity inducing for the poor cow.

Every day sees a wide selection of derelict buildings, but possibly less so than normal today.

The path up to O Cebreiro was steep but manageable. It rose 600m in roughly 5km.We stopped halfway up for lunch at a delightful vegetarian restaurant where they were playing traditional Galician folk music, almost indistinguishable from Irish. The lentil burger was superb.

O Cebreiro was a village of grey granite buildings, quite depressing.

We’d already made the decision to continue on to Fonfaria but rapidly began to question that decision. The route out of O Cebreiro cut across the lee side of the mountain which was covered in deep snow.

There was a path of sorts, stamped by earlier peregrinos but the snow was soft so attempting to retrace previous footsteps was doomed to fail. We slid, tripped and expended huge amounts of unnecessary energy trying to walk. We had at least a km of this before the snow began to include deep depressions of mud and water. Our gore-tex boots were soon swamped and sodden. Just as the snow finally gave way to grit and mud we saw this.

Obviously someone was relieved 🤗.

On the way down off this particular mountain (lots more to come) we came across a gathering of tractors. Some 30+ of them.

We struggled on for a further 5 km or so, made our way up a steep snow gully (mum fell at this point) and emerged outside an albergue. Both of us were utterly exhausted. We were still some 3.5 km from our intended destination but neither of us could face another step.

We popped in, they had a double for the night at only 20 Euros and they served food. Alleluia 😍.

Unfortunately the walls of our room were damp and covered in mould, the toilets were disgusting and the father couldn’t get the heater plug to fit into the wall socket without sparking. We looked at each other, mum went to collect our 20 Euros while I scarpered. (She found the father whittling at a piece of wood, evidently intended to help jam the plug into the socket)

We walked the remaining 3.5 km to Fonfaria, each step causing absolute agony to our feet, Achilles tendons, hips, knees and calf muscles. It took at least an hour to reach Fonfaria.

We stopped at the first albergue. Not only did it have a double room with a double bed, a shower to die for but the meal has been the best on the Camino, the company delightful and they’ve even got little plastic pipes that carry warm air which we have placed into our boots. Joy of joy.

My feet are excruciatingly painful. Mum has lathered them in ibuprofen gel and I’ve bolted down a gram of paracetamol. Mum insisted that her feet hurt but I can’t hear any moaning, consequently I can’t believe that mum’s feet are causing her as much pain. Perhaps I’m simply more sensitive 😟.

31 km done today. The intention is to get to Saria tomorrow, 38 km away but if my feet are still painful in the morning we’ll take it easy. We’re still on track to get to Santiago de Compostela on Tuesday so we’re still on track to fly home on Wednesday.

A hard day? You bet 😓.

Buen Camino