Our journey third day took us to the heart of the re-energised Camino. Dom Elias Valiña Sampedro was born in nearby Sarria and appointed priest for the small, impoverished village of O Cebreiro in 1959. The Camino de Santiago had largely fallen away. Valiña wrote at large about the Camino and redefined the route. In particular, he introduced the yellow arrow, la flecha amarilla, which is widely used all along the route to indicate the path to take. Valiña’s grave is in the church here.
As it is 600 metres of ascent from Las Herrerías to O Cebreiro, we decided in our planning to have a shorter walk of 9 km.
The path followed the road initially but became a delightful track through the trees. As we were at 1,000 metres, the height of Yr Wyddfa or Scafell Pike, spring is only just coming to many of the trees which are covered in lichen.
As we reached 1,100 m, the trees thinned out and the landscape became similar to hill walking in the UK.
Soon after we reached the boundary between León & Castile and Galicia. This northwest area of Spain has its own clear identity with a separate language, Galego, which is closer to Portuguese than Spanish / Castillian. A Spanish tutor living in Madrid with relatives by marriage in Galicia said she could read Galego but not understand it when spoken. We’ve seen several road signs where a capital J has been spray painted with a replacement X.
We were met at our arrival in O Cebreiro at 1,300 metres with the sound of bagpipes. The first building was a Celtic roundhouse of which there are a few in the village. Although attractive it is a sign of the difficult living conditions in this area and altitude that more modern buildings were not built.. It was cold all day and with a sharp wind. I hesitate to think what it’s like in winter.
There are fewer pilgrims than in the earlier stages. This is largely due to our starting 600 km on and there are not many people who went over Pyrenees in April. We have though had conversations with fellow pilgrims from South Korea, Australia, Canada, the US as well as fellow Brits.
There are more people here who are completing shorter sections of the Camino. Undoubtedly we will find many more pilgrims after Sarria who are completing the 100 km to Santiago.
The views from 1,350 metres were stupendous. This is the same height as Ben Nevis but most definitely not sub-arctic. Latitude makes an enormous difference.
I was struck by the pilgrims’ prayer in the church. In particular this phrase spoke to me Si no he descubierto la libertad de ser yo mismo, no he llegado a ningún sitio.
In the evening there was a pilgrims’ mass in the church. After the service the pilgrims gathered round the front of the church for a blessing. The priest asked which languages people spoke. Mostly European languages were mentioned but also Vietnamese and South Korean. The priest rifled through a large book file and asked individuals to read out the blessing in their own language. It was a nice touch.
The priest finished with a few brief words on Ultreia which is a Latin word meaning to go further, onward or beyond. He pointed to the west down the aisle of the church. It was a moving symbolic moment.
Ultreia, vamos!
(I’m posting this a day later as the Internet connection was very slow at such a remote place.)
Julian and Beryl's camino 