It was four weeks ago today we were leaving St Jean Pied de Port, France and heading straight uphill in the French Pyrenees Mountains. Looking back, we were truly fortunate in our timing. We had beautiful weather, but later learned that just two days after we had walked the Napolean Route they had to air evacuate 26 people stranded on the same path because of intense snow and winds. Today was the first of two – what I will classify as ‘re-positioning days’. Much the same way that a cruise line send ships on seasonal re-positioning trips (e.g Alaska to Sydney in October) today and tomorrow are merely moving us from one steep mountain range to another. After a very long and technically difficult climb yesterday up and.down the mountain where we saw the Cruz de Fierro, today was a relatively flat 14.5 mile urban walk. After leaving Molinaseca early this morning and hiking for 1 1/2 hours we entered the outskirts of Ponferrado – by Camino standards a fairly large city. The sun was breaking through the clouds and illuminating beautiful green mountains just south of the city. It took us another 5 miles to hike through and out of the town as we headed west toward our destination of Cacabelos – designated an official European Wine CIity. It was nice to see hillsides full of vineyards – really the first we had noticed since leaving the Rioja region almost two weeks ago. All day long the mountain range separating the province of Leon from the province of Galicia grew closer and closer. We will finish our re-positioning tomorrow and prepare to climb to O Cebreiro on Sunday. Bien Camino!
A lifetime experience