It’s been a hard day, probably the hardest on the Camino so far. Interestingly this is exactly what I said last time we arrived in Ponferrada. Last time it was April and we had blizzard conditions coming over Cruz de Ferro, a large iron cross on a huge mound of stones.

Last time no stones were visible and neither was the path. The road was covered in snow but a solitary snow plough did its level best to keep the middle of the road free of snow and just about passable. Today it looked like this.

We’d had some toast and chamomile tea before we’d set out but our next stop would be some 11km further on, so more walking across the hills. One of the delights of this long walk is the wildlife and the flowers. Immediately after leaving the village we passed a large pond with an energetic frog choir.

Then we passed Jean-Luc, the gentle french chap who is walking from Le Puy to Santiago.

Shortly after this photo was taken he tumbled quite painfully, but hopefully with only pride dented he’ll be fine.

El Acebo de San Miguel is a small collection of bars, houses and one or two restaurants who, I suspect, live almost entirely on the income of passing pilgrims to Santiago. Pretty much everyone stops, chats, has breakfast before heading back down the trail.

Initially the route was much the same as earlier but now life got much trickier and much more technical.

The steepness of the descent was surprising and extremely taxing on the knees, hips and ankle joints. Quite a number of people that we’ve met on this walk have been our age or older but more frail, less fit. It’s so easy to break an ankle, a leg or worse, a hip on this sort of steep terrain. Both of us were quite fed up of the constant jarring which continued for at least the next 7km to Molinaseca, a small town 8km from Ponferrada.

We stopped for a bocadillo and some agua con gas. On the table next to us was a much younger french lady who was clearly in some distress. It seemed that she’d fallen badly at some point and was being whisked off to hospital in a taxi to get herself checked out. I doubt that she’ll be the last they see today.

The remaining 8 km was boring but safe.

The final image is with Reggie, a delightfully cheerful South African chap who has been accompanying the Dean but has now left them many km behind as he strides purposefully to Santiago.

Our new hotel is great; light and airy with a beautiful velux window above my head through which the swifts are twisting and turning across the sky. It’s fantastic viewing 😊.

Dorothy has sorted out the washing while I’ve been watching the swifts and writing this. Once the washing is dry we’ll head out to grab some food.

Buen camino

Addendum: got to have one of these.