Turbo time!

The day after I passed the Cruz de Ferro, I came into Ponferrada. The city is famous along the Camino for its Templar castle, though most of it actually dates to after when the Templars left. It's very impressive walking up to it, with the Disney-esque towers and crenelated wall.

However, it is rather less than impressive on the inside. Basically there's a welcome room where it explains a little about the time period and the different jobs people might have, showing their costume. Much of the explanations are only in Spanish, as is the video, so I basically just looked at how they dressed and read a little about stone workers and carpenters. Then you walk around a bit and this is what you see:

Not much there. There is an exhibition of illuminated manuscripts, which the English teachers I know might appreciate even though none of the manuscripts are actually in English. But they're books. Incredible books. Most of them are larger than books made today, but the decoration on the pages is magnificent! And some are impressive for their size, whether giant or tiny. A few others were impressive for the colors.

This last is a copy of an illustrated edition of The Divine Comedy. You know, Dante...? The Inferno... Anyway, the collection was really cool! Yes, yes, we already know I'm a nerd.

I passed a cliché the next day.

A cat stuck in a tree. How original, right? The swimming hole at the next town was original. I didn't get to go in because I didn't pack a swimsuit (which didn't stop other pilgrims). It would have been nice after the long hot day during which I accidentally took a detour and ended up off the main Camino path, thereby not getting to the town I wanted to arrive in to keep up my walking schedule. And I did have a schedule because I met my mom in Sarria so we could walk together. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I knew I couldn't walk the thirty kilometers required the next day to get up the mountain, especially since it would have been more like forty kilometers for me from where I ended up. So I took a bus with my québécoise roomie, Marie Ève, and then we split the cost of a cab with a young Danish couple. We all agreed it was well worth it to avoid that hike. But here' she little hamlet, O Cebreiro. It has a beautiful view off both sides.

A couple of uneventful days later and I was in Sarria. That's the last easily accessible place you can start walking and get a Compostela, the certificate saying you completed the Camino. It's 112 kilometers from Santiago. I met Mom at the train station in the morning and we started walking, though we didn't go very far the first day. Or the second. Or the third. It was plenty for Mom, though, who has gotten impatient and decided I was slowing her down too much. Tomorrow she wants to go the speed of a taxi.

We did pass the 100km marker and kept seeing these interesting structures. Let's have a contest and see who can guess what they are. The winner gets a million dollar bill!

Nature's beauty wins out over all in the end!

Wait, where's Ferdinand?