Walked today: 7.2 mi. Camino2023: 206 mi
We were overwhelmed this morning by the very nice breakfast prepared for us as we departed early this morning, before breakfast. It was so thoughtful and typical of the hospitality of our hosts.
We failed to mention in yesterday’s blog that we arrived at Via Avis at 10:00 am and rang the doorbell, fully expecting to be turned away, as with most other properties, until the standard checkin time of 2:00. We were instead greeted cheerfully by Daina and welcomed inside and taken to our room.
Throughout the day, whenever we had a question about something, like, is there a place to hang out clothes to dry, Daina or Carlos would respond cheerfully, taking care of our needs, like we were a house guest, not just someone passing through.
Our less than 24 hour encounter with this delightful couple will be among our fondest, positive experiences of all of our Caminos.
After walking the 7 plus miles to Rabanal, we asked the barkeep to call a taxi (only two cars serve this area) to take us up, over and down the mountain into Molinaseca, our lodging place for the night. The first taxi service was totally booked for the day but the other one could pick us up in 30 minutes.
The ride up to Cruz Ferro and the incredibly beautiful 7 mile section along the mountain ridge on this clear morning was as we remembered from our three previous walks in 2015 and 2017 and 2019.
Admittedly, we didn’t miss some of the treacherous downhill sections into El Acebo and later into Molinaseca which we have avoided via taxi since 2019.
Had we been able to reserve a place to stay at Foncebadón that matched our Camino2023 plan, we could have walked the ridge again, but it was not to be. But thankfully the memories and some incredible photos of those prior walks will be forever ingrained among our Camino experiences.
Jimandi 