Day 1 Ourense to Cea

Back in the “60’s, there was a TV cartoon show that while ostensibly for kids, struck a chord with lots of "hip" adults too. I can recall sometimes joining the after-work mob of Connecticut-bound New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad commuters waiting for their train in the upstairs bar at Grand Central Station at 42^nd  Street & Lexington Ave. The big black & white TV set there would often be showing an episode of a TV show called “Mr. Peabody & Sherman” – to a crowd of big-time businessmen, fresh off another day of running the nation’s businesses. Anyway, a key plot-enabling device in the show was a contraption called the “Wabac” machine- a time travel device that enabled Mr. Peabody & Sherman to immediately shift back and forth between past-time and today. Why do I mention this? Because for the past few weeks. Joan & I have been walking in rural Galicia through NW Spain and way too often there has been no internet connection and thus no way to post on this blog. So, we are hereby invoking the services of our own “Wabac” machine and for the next week or so, will be posting the blogs that we would have written each day if we actually had had a connection that day. So here we go.

Tuesday, May 16. Ourense to Cea.

Wow, what a day! We left our hotel in Ourense at 7 am today, hoping to beat the afternoon heat on a long 22 km walk from Ourense to Cea. There are two routes out of Ourense that join up just before Cea and we debated which one to take. Cheryl, our mentor back in APOC had suggested we take the right route (as she had done) which was slightly longer and reputed to get very wet and messy after prolonged wet spells but didn’t appear from the route profile to have quite as many steep sections; the left route promised to be a few less kilometers plus offered a café con leche break about half way through at a unique place called “Casa Cesar”. Our subsequent decision led to our first transgression of what came to be known by us as “Cheryl’s Rules” ; these will be explained in a subsequent blog.

We chose to go left, based on pilgrim hearsay that the right route was very muddy & slippery. Big mistake. We were carrying our Osprey 33 packs, which weighed about 16 pounds with water & food and that didn’t seem too bad when we started walking out of town on the nearly deserted road heading north. For an hour we walked past industrial estates, car parks, businesses & warehouses and then at the 4 km point, turned right onto a steep short downhill leading into a short but narrow one-car wide tunnel. Timing our dash through the tunnel to coincide with traffic, we found we were on a narrow paved rural road heading uphill before disappearing around a bend into the woods. For the first kilometer, the going was tough but not impossible. But this road never stopped going UP; rounding each turn led to another long “up” stretch. On and on it went and soon I was having a dialogue with myself as to whether I could make it. It was like a bad dream; I found myself daydreaming about when we were crossing the Pyrenees as we had done back in ’13 on the Camino Frances- but this seemed steeper and there were no flat sections to gather new strength. So it became a silently repeated internal routine of “walk 100 steps; pause & breathe; check for a place to sit if possible; rest for a few minutes”. Now do it again- and again- and again - for another three kilometers.

When we finally (!) reached the top and had both collapsed at a well-placed information booth with a welcoming bench, we looked back & saw there was a red & white danger sign (!!) to motorists going down what we had just walked up; a sign that warned drivers - “21% Grade!  That is really steep and the damn road was 4 km (2 & 1/2 miles) long; in the Tour de France bicycle race, this would be grade-classified as “Beyond Classification”. But we had 14 kilometers more to go and it was almost noon. Blessedly the trail flattened out and we passed through small villages and fields for a few miles more until we spotted an yellow arrow in the road alerting pilgrims that Casa Cesar was off to the right about a thousand meters ahead. His Casa turned out to be a modest place, covered with pictures and signs of pilgrims past, offering café con leche (the elixir of pilgrims in Spain), sweets of an unknown provenance, local liquors and wines should one so desire, all mixed with small talk passed through a high-energy Galician language barrier. Welcomed we were - but I was exhausted!

There were some 8 km more to go to Cea and we debated continuing to walk but instead chose wisdom over valor and asked Cesar if there was a taxi in the area that could take us ahead to Cea. As we gathered is his wont, Cesar lit up with a smile and grabbed the phone. Shortly up pulls a car and in we pile - packs, poles and two very tired bodies. In a half hour, with Jose Angel filling us in on his time in NYC, we arrived in Cea and found our albergue for the night – Casa Manolo – closed; the owners were shopping in Ourense. So we repaired to the nearest bar & had a cold drink and killed time for a half hour or so.  The owners, a very nice young couple named Roberto and Anita with Lucca, their year-old baby, arrived about 4 and we found we had a big private room upstairs. 

We unpacked as necessary, took a short “lay-down” and then at about 7 pm went across the plaza mayor to a wonderful & perigrino–friendly restaurant/bar called Sol Y Luna for an early dinner and cold drink. There was a washing machine on site at our albergue, so Joan did a small wash and hoped everything would be dry by morning. 

 

It was at this time that we made a decision that it made more sense to have our packs moved ahead daily, so we called Jose Angel – who also ran a luggage moving service on the Camino Sanabres – and gave him instructions for the next days. It cost 5 euros per pack per day, but proved to be money well spent. We had each purchased an ultra-lightweight Monarch 20 litter day-pack and it - following “McGyverization” at home by Joan to add a removable waist & sternum strap – served as our day carry-packs thereafter. We could carry our rain gear, nano jacket, water bottles, various food (usually an Iberian ham & cheese bocadillo) chocolate, almonds & Clif Bloks energy bars we’d brought from home, a “Can’t Lose” pills & passport pouch and our Kelly Guide book with no trouble. This all weighed less than 8 pounds.  

I had finally figured out and reluctantly have accepted that I no longer can comfortably carry a full backpack weighing 15-20 pounds on our long walks; having made this concession to my age, we will now be using ‘carry-ahead” services on future long-distance walks in Spain and England.