DRAGONTE...

O.K..

There has been a great decrease in the amount of internet and a great increase in my exhaustion at the end of the day...so, finally, here I am again. I am currently in Portomarin, a very beautiful city with a great story about Franco, flooding and a church, but that is not what I´m going to tell you about. I am going to tell you about Dragonte.

On Sunday June 12th the group was walking from Villafranca to O´Cebreiro. This camino was about 30 kilometers. There were however, 3 opciones to get you there: the boring route(aka along the highway), the practical route (pretty views and some hills) and then there was DRAGONTE--the route that was 11 kilometers longer and only for the daring people who are in excellent shape. HA.

Needless to say, I chose Dragonte. Shauna and I decided we are in Spain and we are going to do the most original camino there is despite the many mountains, poor trail markings and absence of towns along the way. So we, thanks to clean sheets and the absence of squeaky bunkbeds, got a good nights sleep for once. We woke up around six, packed up and went outside our beautiful albergue, Vina Fremista, to find that we were locked in! Failing to break through the gate we realize that we are going to have to clambor over it somehow. Fortunately, the professor of the group, Finegan, was waiting for us as he had decided that neither he, nor we, should go it alone. Finegan proceeded to help us get over the fence with our ridiculous packs stuffed with food and water and we were on our way. We left the adorable town of Villafranca and began our adventure.

Our adventure started with 5 kilometers straight up the mountain on an asphalt road in the dark-yay. Talk about feeling the burn and wondering what the heck I was thinking for choosing this route...

But we made it up to the top in about an hour and we were greeted with a beautiful view of the surrounding area and a sense of accomplishment! Then we found a hidden marker that said GR11 and headed off of the main road to a much less-traveled path. This path went up for a tiny bit then DOWN and DOWN and DOWN... basically weaving us down the other side of the mountain through the brush. This, I must say, was pretty fun! So we popped out of the bushes part way down the mountain where we had the most gorgeous view of the landscape and surrounding mountains. It was so beautiful in fact, that a little bit further down we decided to have lunch over-looking a beautiful stone quarry with a great view of the mountains and the promise of a far-away village.

Lunch was less satifying than the view, thats for sure--chocolate sandwiches (dont ask...we thought it was peanut butter) and some gummy bears. But honestly, it didn´t even matter...we were in our own secret paradise. Did I mention that VERY few pilgrims take this crazy dragonte route? So we were completely solo. After lunch we continued on down the mountain with the vague direction of looking for a derrelict stone building where we had to make a right and we ¨"might get wet." HAHA... we found the derrelict building and made a right..straight into a stream. Wearing beautiful trekking sandals, thanks to my achilles problem, I clearly couldn´t get them or my socks wet so Shauna and I took off our shoes and socks and picked our way down the stream barefoot. Freezing...but kind of cool! Finegan was nice enough to let us dry our dirty wet feet off on his towel and after strappin the ol´ sandals back on we were on our way. This time UP. And up and up and up. Straight up the mountain... definitely feeling the burn. We were all out of breath and huffing and puffing when we came to a three way where our very detailed directions said to take the larger of the three trails-which were all EXACTLY the same size. We chose the right one. Hehe... literally, the right one... that was ACTUALLY the wrong one! So we climbed up a few hundred more feet to a dead end and turned back around. Now we had a 50/50 chance. Thank goodness we took a left and got it "right" the second time because we were wearing down. The left trail climbed its way up the mountain and onto a road that was not marked. We went up into a town of, get this, 14 people. No joke... three kids. We think that the man meant 14 houses... and a total of about 31 people but still, crazy! Speaking of "the man", as we walked up a hill into town a nice man proceeded to tell us that we were lost but he would show us the way. He walked with us for a good kilometer or so holding a sign for Villacende, the next town, so other wayward pilgrims could find their way. I would like to say I had an amazing conversation with this dude but thanks to my Mexican accent and his own Galician/Gallego tongue, he had NO clue was I was saying...(sad face) and Finegan was the conversation-holder. SIGH.

Anyways... we were so excited to travel up for four more kilometers into a town that was supposed to have coffee.We saw a lady on her porch and, with desperation in our voices, we asked if there was coffee anywhere in the town and she said no there was no such thing. Seeing our crestfallen expressions, she must have felt bad for us and immediately invited us into her home to give us some coffee. So...that is how we came to meet Toni, the lady, and her husband Kiki. They were the sweetest people in the world. She made us coffee and cut up bread and cheese and meat for us while we all visited in the kitchen. Kiki even gave us a tour of the beautiful house...which actually belongs to his father but they come on weekends from time to time. Kiki and Toni took a picture of the three smelly pilgrims they took into their home and we were on our way feeling more than a little inspired!

The road wound up through the rest of the tiny town and onto a path that we traveled for a kilometer or so until we ran into a man walking behind his horse along a field. This man told us that we were lost and that we were not on the right path to Herreria, our next goal, and much like the man earlier in the day, he led us to the correct path. Not surprisingly, it was a poorly marked split in the trail and we had gone left instead of right. We should have known...because right was UP. So up we went. We climbed a good 4 or 5 kilometers straight up the steep side of the mountain...AGAIN. It was soo exhausting but we kept at it until we got to the top...feeling dead and invincible all at once. Once we reached the top we started to wind our way back down again into Herreria. Herreria was a cute town where we stopped at an albergue to get a drink of water and where we met Chicago. Chicago was a really awesome dude working at the albergue that said he had done the camino to santiago two years ago but fell in love with the girl at this albergue so he walked the rest of the camino, with his dog, to Santiago and then walked all the way to Herreria where he promptly moved and has lived ever since. CUTE!! Chicago pretty much told us that he has never heard of anyone that did the Dragonte trail the whole way to O´Cebreiro which is the town we were still heading to. He was impressed... I wasn´t sure what to think at that point. So after filling up our camel baks we headed back out through the town of Herreria. We still had about 8 to 10 kilometers left to do. Tough ones.

The road was nice for a while as we left the town of Herreria but then it began to go up and never stopped. We climbed for the next 8 kilometers straight up the mountain. The road was steep and rocky in parts, slow and winding in others, but the constant characteristic was UP. It was very painful after all the other climbing we had done but we were stubborn! We climbed and climbed and huffed and puffed for a few hours until we finally arrived at the top in O´Cebreiro. YAY!! The views were gorgeous... I mean, maybe the most beautiful landscape that I have ever seen. I have never felt so accomplished in my entire life as I did at the end of that day. It was 7:15ish when we arrived. We had been walking for almost 12 hours...up and down mountains. We had done DRAGONTE. We were invincible...if only for a little while. I´ll never forget June 12th 2011 for as long as I live and despite the fact that I was too tired to smile for the picture we took at the top, we had made it!

Thats all for now, will try to post more soon. Only three more days of walking!! Can you believe it!?
Nays