Today was a delight. We awoke to glistening frosted rooftops and minus two degrees. Hugs and gracias’ all round with our host after a couple of coffees and we were off into the still crisp air.
The old church ruins atop the town were shrouded in mist as we made a steady pace up the hill to keep warm. Wildflowers; yellow, purple and white burst out of the heather as they caught the morning sunlight and the clearing mist unveiled the surrounding snow peaked mountains.
We stopped at Cruz de Ferro (the iron cross), the highest point on the Camino (1504m) where traditionally pilgrims have placed stones, often carried from home, representing burdens to be laid to rest. Historically, pilgrims were requested to bring stones to aid in the construction of the cathedral in santiago de compostella and local hospitals. Over time this has morphed into the religious practice of placing burdens at the (11th century) cross.
There’s an undulating plateau before the descent on the western side of the range and here at Manjarin, we found a small caravan and hut selling coffee, tortilla and pastries. It was a magical little place with a wood fire burning and views out over the mountains. We fuelled up, chatted with a few friends and headed off. A large Namibian in short sleeve shirt and shorts, hearing our departing voices says, ‘Australian? Have you guys learnt how to play rugby yet?’
The decent into Molinaseca is long, fairly steep and rocky and we took our time as the path dropped through forest and alpine tundra with stunning views out over Ponferrada in the distance.
There are two beautiful single, narrow street stone villages on the decent, both dating back to medieval times with wobbly timber balconies, and we grabbed a beer at the first ( El Acebo) and a fruit salad in freshly squeezed orange juice at the second (Riego de Ambros). We’d dropped about 500m by then and had warmed up considerably navigating the steep rocky terrain.
We saw a couple of bull mastiffs coming down here. An albergue host had said, ‘don’t ever get between a bull mastiff and its sheep or it’ll kill you’. This cheery piece of information kept us very sheep-vigilant indeed as we dropped through the large stand of chestnut trees below Riego de Ambros.
Molinaseca’s slate rooves finally came into view as we dropped the final 100m or so alongside the rushing waters of the Meruelo down below.
We quickly found and settled into our room at The Way Hostel and took a tour around this spectacular little town. The town is entered via a long stone bridge that turns walkers to face and look up to the impressive church perched on a high knoll overlooking the narrow streets. Steep stairs leading up to the church reach a small manicured green garden framed by two ancient olive trees, a peaceful oasis above the day to day noise of the village.
It was a long decent so we grabbed restorative wine or to with Wolfgang and Jalina, grabbed a bite (pork in rockerfort cheese sauce) and called it a day.
