Day Two - Cea to Oseira Monastary

May 17^th - Cea to Oseira Monastery

Once again calling on the incredible power of our “Wabac machine”, we are now starting on the second day of our walk to Santiago de Compostela on the Via Sanabres. It’s a nice day and after rising early and having a small breakfast at the Casa Manola in Cea, we’re on the road by 7:30 AM. But first, we stop by the Sol Y Luna restaurant/pub and order a couple of Iberian ham & Spanish cheese bocadilla sandwiches for our lunch. The Way is clearly marked from the plaza major past the town football pitch and Bread Monument (a statue of a woman baking bread - Cea is famous regionally for its “pan”) onto a shady lane. Once again, there are two routes out of town, both leading to Castro Dozon about 20 km away, but we are  going to take the right route and spend the night at the historic Oseira monastery about 10 km away. We are the only pilgrims we meet all day.

This path is fairly well marked with concrete posts bearing the familiar Galician scallop shell “concha” symbol (the rays pointing towards Santiago, rather than away, as on waymarks in the rest of Spain) but there is a paucity of the usual yellow arrows as we walk in the woods and fields; the stone walls & tree trunks are often mantled with heavy green moss but the hillsides and fields are painted yellow with the spring blooming of the local broom bush. This is obviously a working pathway, for we start to see signs of cows (can’t miss the smell of the ubiquitous “cow flops”) using the roadway. At one point, a small stream rushing off the hillside on our right crosses the path and we’re forced to slosh through boot-high pools of water and through mushy cow-tracks. I sure hope my Keen boots live up to their marketing as being “waterproof”! 

After about 6 km, the path opens up and about a 100 yards ahead we spot a farmer driving a small herd of cows down the lane towards us. Hemmed in by stone walls, brush and trees, Joan, Elaine & I step as far as we can to the side and stand awaiting the herd’s passage. These are big & beautiful Galician cattle (with long horns!), mainly buttery brown but with one black beauty bringing up the rear, followed by the farmer (we say “Hola, Buenos Dias” and he in turn wishes us a “Buen Camino”) and a couple of dogs.  Joan & Elaine swore afterwards that “those sharp horns only missed us by a few inches!) The cattle appeared startled a bit when they saw us as they passed but the dogs did their job and kept everybody moving, passing us by with only a few feet to spare. As the herd drew away, the smallest of the dogs turned back and followed us –barking! – for a couple of hundred yards, obviously intent on doing his job and reminding us that he belonged there and we didn’t. 

We finally emerged from the woods and entered the small village of Pielas, joining a well-marked paved road to the monastery. There was supposed to be a café here but it was siesta time and everything seemed closed, so we walked on the quiet paved road down a slight grade, passing fountain monuments and signage. After about 3 km, the first sign of our goal appeared, a big white building that seemed to be still in use, filled with crypts holding the burial urns and ossuaries of the faithful and clergy that have served this monastery for over 1000 years.

Finally the monastery itself appeared on our left as we crossed a river and walked up a slight grade to the Monasterio de Santa Maria la Real de Oseira. It is a huge place, stones and concrete built up lovingly over the centuries in towering masses and holy adornments; however now it appeared almost without noticeable human activity. We made our way into the gift shop area, registered to stay the night in the albergue, found out where our carry-ahead backpacks were located and then walked down to the pilgrim albergue section, a big stone building at the back of the complex.

Inside the huge, high-vaulted hall was a section for sleeping, with three long rows of steel double-deck bunk beds, each stacked with a pillow, sheets and a very heavy woolen blanket at the foot. A wooden chair sat at the head end and since there was no ladder up to the top bunk, one had to be either extremely agile or be able to jump high to get up there; nobody had yet placed their stuff on the top bunks to hold them. We grabbed three bottom bunks in a row, did our housekeeping and left to find the washing area to do up the day’s dirty socks, underwear and clothes and get them on the drying racks while the sun shone. While lolling around in the sun, we met up with other pilgrims from around the world, including Jillian & Tom from Scotland, Frank from South Africa & his walking buddy Gunther from Germany and Mike from Sacramento, CA. We would continue to bump into members of this “Camino family” along the way for the next week.

We went to a Vespers service around 7 PM, following a guide and walking in complete silence, into the depths of the monastery to a small chapel. As we were seated on benches, the monks walking in, sat in two rows on opposite side and for about 45 minutes, we were treated to something out of the Middle Ages as the monks sang their ancient songs, sometimes calling back and forth from side to side, all in Spanish. When the songs ebbed away and silence returned, one of the monks rose, silently motioned us to follow and we walked back down the long stone corridor. At the doorway, he wished us “Buen Camino”, turned and returned back to his solitary silent life of dedication & service to Christ. It was a strange experience in some respects; both Joan & I felt a little like intruders into something private. Yet we did not feel unwelcome at all, since we too were being part, as perigrinos, of the same age-old testament of man’s need to finding meaning and purpose in our lives. In that sense, we belonged there and that did feel right.

After Vespers, we walked over a few hundred meters to the little town nestled up beside the monastery and went into the only café/pub open for dinner. The barmaid seemed unhappy to have to stir herself to serve us in the nearly empty pub and we ended up having a dinner of eggs over easy, frites (French fries) and a locally-made chorizo sausage, bright red in color. We had been warned by our APOC friend & mentor, Cheryl that this was “an icky restaurant” but once again, ignored her sage advice and I paid for it next morning, suffering a bad bout of “walkers GI” that lasted until my Imodium “stopper” pill did its work. Out of this experience was born our realization that Cheryl’s Rules are ignored at one’s own great peril, and as they say: “She Is One Who Must Be Obeyed”.

  

Curiously, our night’s sleep in the big cavernous room at the monastery was one of the quietest nights I’d ever spent in an albergue. It was not broken by the usual late night snoring, coughing, restlessness or incessant late night bathroom calls. Funny- we all remarked on the quiet while eating our breakfast of yogurt, bread and a peach we’d bought the night before. We left around 9 AM for the 15 km walk to our next stop, Castro Dozon.