45. A Gudiṉa to Laza

What a difference a day makes! When we awoke this morning it was calm and clear - a beautiful morning for walking. Fernando and I had breakfast at a little café that opened at 6.30am and then got down to the business of walking and such a contrast to yesterday’s weather. I tend to walk faster than he does so I took a couple of shots for him before pressing on.

He seemed to enjoy the attention!

Unbeknownst to me, he returned the favour!

Sunrise is a magical time of day to be out walking.

It felt like we were traversing the roof of Galicia for much of today. On both sides there were enormous drops into deep green valleys.

That’s some cairn. 

After about twenty kilometres of walking this village came into view. I was ready for a break and very much hoped that it might have an open café. It did!

To get to the village the path descended steeply. Steep downhill walking can be quite treacherous. After my fall on the last Camino I concentrated hard to keep my wits about me. The other disconcerting thing about descending into these valleys is that you know you’re going to have to climb back out again. Sure enough, after the little break it was uphill for quite done time.

All up today there was quite a bit of ascending and descending. The guide tells me we had 621 metres of ascent and, would you believe, 1139 metres of descent. Most of that downhill was in the last ten kilometres where it seemed the path just keep sloping down and down. I think it’s the longest continuous descent I’ve ever walked and my knees are complaining a bit. Of course, tomorrow we’ll have to make it all up again to get over the next range of hills. 

Laza itself is on the floor of a valley. The ground is almost perfectly flat, which for such a mountainous region is quite striking. 

The albergue is on the edge of town. There seem to be about twelve of us here in three different rooms - mostly French, Germans and Australians (3 of us) with a smattering of other nationalities. 

Today was just over thirty-five kilometres in length, and tomorrow to Xunqueira de Ambía is much the same, although it’s a bit more ‘up’ than ‘down’ . There’s more wild weather forecast too!!

Buen Camino

Neil💙👣