Sunday June 2  O'Cebreiro to Triacastela,  13 miles

Song of the day:  Learning to Fly by Tom Petty:
"Comin’ down is the hardest thing
I’m learning to fly around the clouds
But what goes up must come down"

We awoke to a spectacular view from the O'Cebreiro this morning.  OC sits on top of a mountain, surrounded by several other mountains.  There was fog in the valleys around us, but the tops of the mountains were clear and sunny.

Yesterday, we climbed over 2000 feet to OC.  Today, we had a very sharp descent of over 2000 feet.   Yesterday's walk was a killer on the calves, thighs and balls of the feet; today's destroyed our knees and toes!  But, all in all, we are doing terrific, and ready for a shorter, somewhat flatter walk to Sarria tomorrow.

We both had an incredible night's sleep of over 9 hours last night.  I'm sure that was the effect of the very strenuous hike yesterday, plus the comfortable bed in our hotel.

Today, I was constantly reminded of the old Saturday Night Live skit about Blue Oyster Cult's song "Don't fear the Reaper" with Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken.  You might recall that the theme of the skit was about adding "more cowbell" to the recording of the song.  Check it out on YouTube if you haven't seen it.   In any case, the sound of the day was indeed cowbell.  You might notice all the cow pictures included here.  All day long, we passed herds of cows grazing, being herded down paths, going into the barns for milking, etc.  If the sound of the day was cowbell, the smell of the day was....well, you can probably guess!

Galicia is amazingly beautiful.  It is the greenest part of Spain, due to the high amount of rainfall they get.  We are incredibly lucky to be visiting this area in sunny, relatively, warm weather.  The weather forecast seems to be for more of this, but we understand the weather patterns in this area are very inconsistent and can change quickly.

One interesting story about Galicia that we learned when we lived here has to do with their farms.  Agriculture is one of the primary industries in Galicia.  In the past, when a farmer died, his farm would be divided up evenly between his children.  This would then continue to the next generation, etc.  After several generations, all that was left was a bunch of very small, very inefficient farms.  We have been told that this practice nearly wiped out the agriculture industry at one time.  I believe the practice and some of the inheritance practices and tax laws have changed to reduce this problem.

The number of people on the hike seemed to increase a lot today, particularly Spaniards.  In the past few weeks, we have actually encountered relatively few Spaniards, but I would say more than half of the people today were from Spain.  Most of them are just starting the walk to Santiago this weekend.  I understand it will get even worse tomorrow when we get to Sarria.

At the end if this process, we will be issued a "Compestela ." The compostela is a certificate of accomplishment given to pilgrims on completing the Way. To earn the compostela one needs to walk a minimum of 100 km or cycle at least 200 km.  As  it turns out, Sarria  is 112 km from Santiago, and so Pilgrims often start from there or perhaps a little before.  Which is why I think there were so many new people on the route today.

Tomorrow, we hike to Sarria.  Sarria is a historically significant town, and we are looking forward to touring some of the sites.