We’re out on the street, wet and shiny from the night’s storms, shortly after dawn, the sky still grey and threatening. Our albergue’s cafe is closed and we cross the street to a bar for our essential morning coffees.
The town is still waking up as we cross Sarria from south east to north west, shutters opening, lights coming on in the grey gloom, but mostly quiet, and as we ascend the stairs into the old town, albergues begin to disgorge their pilgrims into breakfast rooms and bars. Sprookers bid for pilgrim breakfast dollars, and slowly, as we ascend the narrow paved mainstreet, the Camino’s moving village starts to assemble, sleepy but satiated, into the gentle morning rain.
They come out albergue doors, out of laneways, streets and bars adding to the growing throng so that, by the time we crest the hill beyond the medieval fort, we’re walking amidst a steady silent stream of coloured ponchos, jackets and umbrellas.
At the bottom of the hill I stop to snap Di crossing an old stone bridge out of town. As I set off again, ten people are queuing behind me to cross in their turn.
As the rainy morning-grey gloom lifts, pilgrims can be seen strung out ahead and behind, across field and wooded path and up the steep oak lined track out of the valley. Conversations bubble up as people awake with the morning, blood starts to flow into stiff joints and the puff and grunt of the hill climb brings us, perhaps a little brutally, into the present.
The Camino from Sarria to Santiago de Compostella was the minimum distance pilgrims could travel to attract church indulgences and today, the minimum distance required to receive a certificate. Not surprisingly, this section attracts 30% more pilgrims than anywhere else, about 500 per day rising to 2000+ per day in mid summer.
For all that, we find this one of the most pleasant sections we’ve done. Compared to yesterday’s heat the overcast sky and gentle breeze keep us cool and beyond the initial short steep climb the terrain undulates gently through groves of chestnut and oak, the path marked by stone walls mottled with lichens and moss. There are villages every few kilometers and, no doubt due to the perpetual stream of pilgrims, there are more cafes and bars and their stonework seems more robust and better maintained…less dilapidated.
There’s a small Cafe between villages with fewer people and we take a rest and recaffeinate. Wolfgang and Yalinda are their and we compare notes on our respective journeys and debate whether the few drops of rain we see splashing in the road side puddles warrant rain gear or not.
Ahead a group are huddling around a table on a forest path. A man in a hooded cape is stamping pilgrim’s passports with hansom wax seals. A lady, dressed like a witch addresses us. She’s a Meiga, from Latin, medica or healer.
Long before the Catholic pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela was established, these women were the shamans, midwives, and herbalists of Celtic and Iberian tribes. During the 14th to 16th centuries, the Spanish Inquisition severely persecuted them. Their intimate knowledge of the forest and natural healing was viewed as heresy, and many “wise women” were condemned or burned for supposedly harboring pacts with the devil (gallwonders.com).
We stop in Morgade for a bite and Di steps ahead in the ‘full pilgrim’ stakes purchasing a coloured rosary reckless. I get a hat pin but Di advises that unless im going to pierce my nose with it, it doesn’t count. Harsh but fair, so I suppose Di is one up.
We giggle waiting to photograph a very small church (Bunnings garden shed size), as an alarming number of backpacked, walking poles toting women step out one after the other as from the TARDIS.
Somewhere along the trail we hook up with Michelle and Sam from Redcliffe. Sam recalls a Chinese guy purporting to provide wax seals for pilgrim passports but actually sticking on wax look plastic medallions with a glue gun. It’s delightful strolling in the cool chatting about life.
We take a couple more stops during the day as the green woods and stone have captured our hearts and we don’t want it to end. At the first we watch students, on year end excursion, boom box by in tracky dacks and T-shirts, fresh and jubilant on their first Camino day out of Sarriah. At the second we chat, over chilled reds, with Christian and Alice from Romania, he a real estate agent-wool industrial insulation start up owner and actor, she a dancer-actor-turning director. They met flying aeroplane. He has just arrived as a surprise to join her here for the last 100km. They seem both deeply devoted to each other and to being present to their Camino journey.
its a few kilometers down to the Rio Mino and across the bridge to Portomarina where we shower, rest up, enjoy a delightful see food meal in an actual restaurant (where we realise just how cheap the pilgrim meals are), and call it a day.
