Climbing into the Galatian Region | Day 21

I left Villafranca this morning for what was going to be a 20 mile hike. The first 12 km of it was supposed to be relatively flat and follow a river. The last six or more kilometers is pretty much straight up and you have to climb to about 1500 m, which is about 5000 feet.

About 3 km outside of town around the corner in the darkness and saw two rather large eyes right in the middle of the road and it would not yield. It turned out to be a wild dog, and the only way that I could get by it was to bang my sticks together and keep my very bright spotlight in its eyes as a semi by, hearing it growl at me. Scared the you know what out of me!

I had a few espressos, knowing that I was going to be climbing rather significantly. The documentation that we saw about this being the mother of all segments was true. The path was the steepest I’ve seen on the Camino so far, and it went on for over 6 km. There were some beautiful sites along the way, and I finally passed into the Galatian region.

At the top of the hill, I saw some horses, and I guess you can hire these to take you up that steep hill. I wish I would’ve known that first! :-)  At the top of the hill when we reached the little village, where we were going to stay for the night, there is the oldest church on the Camino, 800 years old. It’s quite impressive to walk through.

The village of O Cebreiro is situated on the top of the mountain. The view from our Albergue looking west towards a Santiago is amazing.

One of the interesting things about the village we are in, there is a lot of Celtic influences here. Both the architecture and the music, I felt like I was in Ireland.