Via Podiensis: Darkest

Today was not a great day. It poured rain, I only managed about 17 km, and I’m homesick.

After the monastery tour yesterday, Martha from Brooklyn and I headed over to a tiny chapel on the outskirts of town. This is the oldest part of the monastery complex, though it is not physically located at the “new” monastery, which was first built at the current location in the 11th century. 

This particular Mozarabic chapel dates to the last half of the 9th century. On the outside, it’s not much to look at, since the exterior dressing is long gone and hasn’t been replaced or restored. 

The interior, however, retains some of the original plaster and frescoes, as well as some of newer painting that probably dates to the late 10th or early 11th century. And of course the entire structure was extensively restored in the mid 20th century. 

It’s an amazing place. I prayed here for the intentions of the Camino. 

Then dinner and Mass in the monastery church. When we emerged, the rain was pouring down in sheets. After waiting a while to see if it would stop, it was a mad dash back to the albergue. 

This morning, everything was still damp, including the clothes I washed yesterday. I spent an inordinate amount of time this morning in packing, trying to keep the wet and the merely damp separated. 

I finally left the Albergue at about 7:10 AM. It was, in fact, pouring rain outside. needless to say, I stopped in the very first café I found for breakfast. Today was going to be a long, wet day.

I ran into Martha and a couple of other familiar faces at the café, and I ended up not leaving until almost 8:15. It was still dark when I left, and pouring rain, but the street lights helped with the darkness, at least.

It was a roadwalking on the highway out of Samos. While there was a gravel trail next to the road, it was completely flooded. My pants were soaked through before I had even left Samos. Despite my best efforts, my shoes were soaked through after just a few kilometers further.

At one point it was raining so hard, that my poncho started leaking.

Somewhere around 10 AM or so, the worst of the rain was over. It never actually stopped, but it was a much gentler rain after that.

As I came around the curve on the road, I saw the city of Sarria for the first time at just before 10:30 AM. Within just a few minutes I had entered the city and was walking on the sidewalk instead of a highway.

My next objective was the old medieval city center, where hopefully I could find a café and figure out a way to address my sodden shoes and socks.

I was sitting in a café in the old town of Sarria before 11 o’clock, eating my second breakfast. I left about 20 minutes later, still not sure of today’s final destination.

Of course, Sarria’s famous church of Santa Mariña was closed, as was San Salvador, as well as Saint Catherine’s monastery. But by gosh, every possible gear and trinket shop was open.

I shook the dust – well, mud – from my feet and proceeded down the Camino. It went steeply down a rough concrete road that put some new and interesting wrinkles in my wet socks. 

Then it was relatively flat roadwalking for a bit, until the Camino took a sharp left-hand turn over an old stone bridge and onto a dirt path. And then it was mud and rain up and down the forested hills. The forest was beautiful, and the road, though a bit of an exertion, was smooth and well-maintained. I was starting to worry, though, that it was going to be very difficult to dry out everything I was wearing, most especially my shoes. I decided during this stretch on the shorter option. I would stop in Barbadelo.

As I reached a clearing at the top of a long hill, I realized it was raining much harder again. The decision was confirmed in my head.

The Camino wound its way on a gravel path, flat and smooth, through grassy meadows. In the distance, I could even see cows.

I came up the hill to Barbadelo at about 12:15. While it’s not my shortest day, it’s pretty close. I did, however break 1500 km today. So far in nine weeks I have walked 1513 km, or about 940 miles. 

Now I just need to figure out a way to dry my shoes and then keep my feet dry going forward. The forecast is saying rain every day basically until the end of time. 

Mind you, the sun came out about 3:30 in the afternoon, and you’d better believe I immediately put my shoes out in the sunshine.

Francine sent me this, and it’s what I’m sitting with right now.

When a trial is sent to us, it is more difficult than at other times to know how to be thankful to God. We need to acquire sufficient supernatural strength in order to believe that God remains a Father when He makes us feel the weight of the Cross. Behind the suffering that occupies the foreground, we must learn to discover the heart of the One who, by this trial, wishes either to make us grow more spiritually, to permit us to expiate our sins, or to identify us more with His divine Son and to make us participate more fully in the Redemption.
—Raoul Lus, S.J.

Date: 19 October 2023

Place: Barbadelo 

Today started: Samos 

Today’s Photos!