After peeling our disposable sheets from the rubberized bunks in our private room (I bet the priest never did that), and readying ourselves for the day’s walk, Di begins the day with our customary, ‘let us start’. Our host has advised us that it’s a steep climb to O Cebreiro and likely in the heat of the afternoon, so we’ve started early, shortly after dawn.
If it were possible, it’s got greener as we climb very gradually to the foot of the range that will take us up to (sometimes) snowy mountain town of O Cebreiro. The first town has coffee but it’s a truck stop and we pass. Further on there’s a lovely little village by a stream and we grab our first coffee for the day there.
We’re discussing yesterday and my decision to go solo up the hill and its hard. We stop in this shangrila of a place with timber and warm lighting and out back this delightful little oasis backing onto the river and it’s peaceful and a place of letting go, a watershed and we hug and cry and regroup together.
Finally the gradual incline gives way to a steep climb through heavily wooded almost rain forest. The path is a little muddy and a lot rocky and we crib our way up the steep switch-backs. It’s cool with intermittent light showers and looking up it seems we’re destined to pass into the clouds.
Eventually we reach the small rural town of La Faba, a kind of half way point, and push on through more forest and some high pasture to Laguna. A man descending passes us with two pack horses and moments later, his saddled horse, wanders past with a face full of grass, ‘what?’, he seems to say.
We stop in Laguna for a feed, Galician broth for Di and bacon and eggs with potatoes for me (and a beer). The place is chockers, pilgrims gathered around the slow combustion fire, inside, out of the wind and cold.
When we’re done it’s raining steadily outside and we don our ponchos again for the final push.
The landscape opens up above Laguna, and the cloud, and we enjoy stunning views back down over the valley we’ve climbed; patchwork green fields, wooded mountains, mists in the valleys and a slowly lifting cloud ceiling above.
There’s a delightful wood just before entering O Cebreiro that shrouds the village in mystery and intrigue. A stone wall on our right and heavily wooded steeply dipping dappled greens to our left and a portal of light through the canopy ahead.
At the top, looking out over the vast green expanse below we high five, kiss and hug, our arrival routine, and stand for awhile going, ‘wow’. I think that was a stiffer climb, though of less altitude, than the Pyrenees. The Pyrenees were largely on road and so restricted to what? 12%. O Cebreiro is a track and much steeper and obviously unpaved.
Unlike the Pyrenees, that summits to a view and a road marker, O Cebreiro opens to a traditional Galacian village, now a popular tourist attraction, first hut thatched, open for inspection and appropriately labelled, second hut a trinket shop; porcelain virgins, broach virgins, Camino rings, staffs, back packs, sneakers, rosary beads, twelve packs of Jesus fingers, pluto pups wrapped in fragments of the Turin shroud etc. etc.
Not withstanding it’s a very picturesque little village all in stone. Traditionally the villagers lived in thatched huts with their animals for warmth and shelter, some of these have been preserved as museum exhibits. They were lived in till the 1900s. The village church is the longest standing on the Camino dating back to the 14th century.
According to local lore, on a harsh, snowy winter day, a skeptical monk belittled a devoted peasant who risked his life in the storm just to attend mass. During the consecration, the bread and wine miraculously transformed into visible flesh and blood (fogwatch.com)
This miracle became so famous that the Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, visited O Cebreiro in 1486 and donated reliquaries to the church. The legend even inspired composer Richard Wagner’s famous opera, Parsifal (vivecamino.com)
We thought it miraculous enough to have made it up the hill and found our albergue open and welcoming, particularly following a confirmation email from a now closed albergue next door. All good, we made it!
Our host gave us the time of the pilgrams mass which of course provided the precise window for us to catch the pilgrims meal at the pub.
Hostel Albergueria Frade Do Cebreiro was excellent. Full of old antique furniture and paintings, fresh linen and towels and hot running water – the miracles ran thick and fast
