8 June to Fonfría

Total darkness when I left.

The orange glow of street lamps got me through the village, and then I needed the torch on my phone to pick a path through the horse dung in the forest.

Knowing that rain was forecast, I kept looking back to enjoy the views in case they would disappear.

Exactly as I got to O Cebreiro and turned to see where I had come from a bagpiper started to play. And later as I would be leaving the hamlet, the church bells would ring out.

But first I needed breakfast…

…and then there were the pazollas to sketch, but first I nipped across the road to see the other side of the mountain…

…and by the time I had finished my picture (just ten minutes later) most of the green had disappeared as the fog rolled up the valley

O Cebreiro has a very different feel in the early morning to the late afternoon. At 7:30am there are just pilgrims milling about – later, as we found it last time, the place is filled with tourists.

I took a Quick Look at the place where 8-year-old Tessa broke her arm on our first Camino, and then kept moving.

For some reason I had in my mind that the Pilgrim Monument at Alto de San Roque marked the end of the climb, so I was feeling victorious

I had been planning on sketching this guy with the layers of mountains in the background, but there was nothing to be seen!

There was a downhill past meadows full of daisies that lulled me into a false sense of security in my memory

We walked out of the fog and I renewed my hope to see magnificent vistas.

I say “we”. I was not actually walking with anyone, but had some interactions with a Spanish family with two children, two older Spanish guys who untangled my hat which was attached to my pack so I didn’t have to take my pack off, and an American guy…

…we kept taking little breaks at different points so we ended up passing each other frequently.

The dear old Spaniards were so taken with the cows…

…and this little building, which they thought might be for horses, but we all went in it and found some memorial plaques for people who had died.

By now I was certain the fog was behind us, and I was also certain I had misremembered about it all being downhill. There had already been ups and downs, which everyone had been commenting on….and then there was one more

The fog chased us up the hill

While I ate a piece of empanada, it closed in completely.

When I’d finished and was ready to set off, the family with kids and two older gentlemen said goodbyes as if we had been lifelong friends! There was just another 4km to go after this, and it went slowly, because I kept stopping to watch the fog swirling around. It danced up the road.