Day 2.7/36: May 4, 2017 Astorga to Foncebadón

Foncebadón, Spain

May 4, 2017
Foncebadón

26.39km, 7:00hr; 62100 steps; 592m elevation gain

Wow! It was another great day walking on the Camino!

I was apprehensive about today, partially because the profile in the guidebook shows a steady uphill climb, and partially because we can see it coming. While it a relief to finally be off the Meseta, it has been intimidating to see the hills build into mountains, knowing that we need to cross those mountains. Today we climbed the Irago pass.

 

All the apprehension was for nothing. We checked off the successive towns like Camino professionals: Santa Catalina, El Ganso, Rabanal del Camino. We barely noticed that we were headed uphill. Just before Rabanal, we encoutered a Templar Knight and Julie, his golden eagle. We paused and posed for a photo op, and stroked the eagle before making a generous deposit in the contribution box.

This region is rife with Templar history. Their main stronghold was a castle in Ponferrada, our destination. The Templars were charged with protecting pilgrims, and actually innovated a rudimentary checking account system, allowing pilgrims to travel without carrying heavy coin. You may recall that it was not far from here that my personal Templar Knight, Ara, rescued me last year. Thankfully, our contribution to Julie and the Templar Knight on the road gave us some good karma. 10 minutes up the path from the knight, a group of Portuguese women started yelling at us. We stopped, assuming they wanted us to take their picture. When they caught up with us, they handed us Lisa'a wallet, which had fallen out on the trail. A crisis narrowly avoided and this time without calling Ara. Lesson learned: zippered pockets, phone in a separate pocket.

The final stretch from Rabanal to Foncebadón is steep and rugged, and while we were proud of our athletic performance today, we were happy to sit down and have a beer

I have to say that Lisa came to my rescue here. While the Spanish have a reputation for being relaxed and laid back, this is not the case with any kind of hotel registration. I can understand taking a copy of the passport, but many registration clerks will then also type all the information into a online template, then hand write the entire entry again. So, registering a single person can take 10-15 minutes. In Foncebadón, Lisa stepped in just when I was about to lose my patience. Frankly, I had already lost it, but I was still in my speechless "I can't believe this" phase. While Lisa averted my Camino meltdown, we were in for more frustration.

Our task for the evening was to purchase train tickets returning to Madrid from Ponferrada. Renfe is the Spanish railroad , and as you would expect in 2017, they have a website, which allows you to purchase tickets online. Sadly the website doesn't work very well. In Astorga, I spent 2 hours trying to navigate the webpage before coming away with a ticket. I hoped that my experience would help... no such luck. We next spent easily over an hour and a half buying Lisa's ticket (using three different devices).

So while we had a great day hiking, we also had some frustration, but went to bed with wallets intact and with train tickets purchased.

Tomorrow the weather forecast is for rain starting mid-morning. So, the plan is to rise early and make it over Mount Irago and The Cruz de Ferro before the rain.