30th of August there was still light rain in the morning but it got slowly better and we took it slow with the breakfast. The first pilgrims came by and we recognised Veronica, who was missing her credential at Villafranca del Bierzo from far distance. This time she didn’t look happy for another reason, but was happy to see us. She had very bad blisters and couldn’t walk anymore in her shoes and tried to walk in her sandals, which was even worse in the rain.
We tried to help her, but unfortunately I had given my las Compeed plaster to Moritz the other day. Modesta was getting her some plasters and we knew Veronica was in good hands and taken care of. We had to say goodbye to them, because the weather looked much better and we were ready to leave.
From now on it was a long downhill of 600m altitude to Triacastela. You could even feel the temperature rising and the vegetation changing the closer we reached the valley. We were just stopping at the church of Triacastela but it was closed. So we tried to get our stamp at the next hostel and bar called “Albergue Atrio”. It was a nice place run by a Nepali from Lumbini called “Vishnu”, but we didn’t get as far as getting the stamps, because the situation changed completely as three pilgrims came down the road and one looked really injured.
It was Chris from England being accompanied by Bart from Belgium, Tim from Germany and his dog Buddy. You could tell that he was still under shock as his legs were full of blood. As he had started in the night he hadn’t seen, even with his headlight, a rock on the trail and had fallen five metres down into some blackberry bushes. As the branches had caught him from falling deeper it was mostly he thorns which had cut into his legs.
The first two pilgrims passing by his accident had left him alone in his misery and finally Bart took care of him. The bandage they had made around his knee looked like it was rubbing him on the wound with each step. As I had bought some time ago in a French pharmacy two packages of large sized plaster which could cover the complete thigh or the calf for the case we would fall with the bike, I knew I had the ideal solution for his wounds.
Robert can’t see blood because he is way to empathetic and suffering just by the idea of imagining all the cuts. So I started to do the “Second Aid” and took the bandage off and started to disinfect the wounds and clean the legs. It was getting to be team work due to Vishnu bringing his first aid case and Tim giving me pads to clean. Once we had everything proper it looked already less dramatic and only a few deeper cuts were left which needed to be covered.
Chris looked already much better and after we had covered and taped everything I gave him three more plasters of the big and the smaller sized ones so he could change them during his continuation of the Camino. We still had something to drink and left on our way which unfortunately split at Triacastel because the pilgrims could walk a steeper rocky trail, while we continued following mostly the road along the river. But we also had some nice parts off the road on old trails which had been used over centuries. They even had sometimes the function of aqueducts like I knew from South-Tyrolian “Waalwege”, where the trail had also the function to keep the water distributed along the trail on a certain altitude serving as an irrigation system.
In one of the river bends the majestic monastery of Samos dominated the complete valley. Unfortunately, we were again missing the opening times as it was already siesta time and we were lucky to still find something to eat at the last restaurant Albaroque in town as everything else was closed.
We continued through the valley on narrow old trails which had deeply cut into the steep cliffs over which the oak and chestnut trees had massively grown, creating a vegetal tunnel. You could imagine how hard it was in the old days to push the horse-drawn carriages over these rocks where even we had to get off the bikes and push them up the worn steps.
When our trail joined the alternative Pilgrims’ path again I hoped to see Chris again as we had lost quite a lot of time at Samos. But instead we met Dave, an Australian, who was on the Camino to start a new life as a company had ruined his running business which was worth millions and he had lost everything. Now his new concept was the “power of pilgrimage”, where he wanted to offer people with burnout the experience of the Camino as a healing alternative to their everyday life.
The next town was Sarria and suddenly the atmosphere changed completely. I had no clue what was going on but Robert explained me that from here on the last 100km to Santiago de Compostela it was more a kind of event for young people to do the Camino. You heard from far away the Drum n’ Bass from some kind of Samba party. The restaurants and bars were full and the silence we knew was gone.
We decided just to leave town and keep on biking as we saw a familiar face on a terrace. It was Chris who was already doing much better with his injuries and was so happy how he had been taken care of. I was so relieved for him that he was back on track and continuing his Camino, and I could hand him over a little gift which I was supposed to give him from Shiva as a souvenir from our encounter in Triacastela.
As we continued the Camino we had to discover more and more signs, which had accompanied us on our way for the last weeks, now being covered with stickers over and over so that you could not even read them anymore. It felt a bit awkward and reminded me of the longing for leaving an imprint in history. As pilgrims were collecting their stamps to remember what they’ve experienced on their way to Santiago de Compostela, here suddenly the concept was inverse and the pilgrims left their stickers or were leaving messages as graffiti on the walls of little chapels.
We had passed the stone of 100km distance to Santiago before the next village which was down by the dammed river of Rio Miño called Portomarín, which replaced the original village which had disappeared in the artificial lake. It was not very appealing to us and we continued to gain altitude again to find another place more in the countryside.
As the clouds got darker we had to take a quick decision and rang a doorbell of a hostel in the farmers’ village of Castromaior, where a lady gave us a room just as it started to drizzle. Luckily the bar two houses further down the road still offered something to warm us up in their microwave. So thanks to the food industry we were having risotto with mushrooms.
Another long day was over and we needed some good sleep before the last leg to Santiago started early tomorrow.
