We left the albergue at the usual time, prepared for a rainy day and one of our hardest stages on the whole Camino. It was just lightly drizzeling and the clouds were still above us when we set off. The Camino took us on beautiful paths through forests along a small mountain river. It was not too steep at first and even descended a few times. Always following the course of the river, we almost didn’t notice how we gained hight. After about 3 km we reached the altitude of the clouds and continued in thick, wet fog, with sometimes more, sometimes less rain. The profile of the stage had looked a little bit like an e-function in the app, lightly ascending at first and getting steeper the higher we would get – and it was exactly like that. The higher we got, the steeper was the path.
However, the landscape was so incredibly beautiful that I didn’t mind the steepnes or altitude or weather. This was the kind of landscape I am used to and love for hiking in the mountains. Narrow, stoney, muddy, steep paths through typical mountain vegetation with oak and beech trees at lower altitudes and less trees, more bushes and flowers in the middle altitudes, and no trees and more stones in the higher altitudes.
The steepest part was right before reaching the mountain pass of Puerto del Palo which was our highest point at 1146 Meters.
It was cold and rainy and foggy up there and we went straight on. I am sure the views would have been stunning if there would have been views. After descending some 200 m on a very slippery stoney path, we reached the village we had been waiting for: Montefurado. It turned out to be 5 stone houses, mostly closed and abandoned-looking and a large dog that probably belonged to the only inhabitant of the village. We looked out for a shelter and sat down for breakfast at the entrance door of one of the houses under a tiny roof. We had walked 10 km and 600 meters of positive elevation by now.
As always, the guys appeared half way through breakfast and we finished up relatively fast, as it was pretty cold.
After this, we kept on descending for a while and then ascended again through fairy-tale forests with trees full of light-green mountain moss, then descended again through fields of high mountain flowers and finally reached Berducedo around 1.
There was a bar and we took the opportunity to get some hot drinks and invited the guys to some Kinder Überraschungs eggs (they’re illegal in the US of course – much more dangerous than guns).
A big rain shower passed by while we were sitting in the bar and we were not very motivated to go on but there were only 5 km left. In the end, the rain stopped after only half an hour and the sun started peeping through the clouds. After 45 minutes, we replaced our rain jackets with T-shirt and suncream. For the last kilometers, our way joined a mountain road with very nice views on which we walked without meeting a single car. La Mesa – our destination – soon appeared in front of us, a very small mountain village with an albergue and not much more than that.
The albergue however, was one of the best ones we have been to: the best strong and hot showers ever, nice staff, fluffy blankets, bunk beds that don’t make any noise when moving (or just breathing, like yesterday), clean and spacious bathrooms and great food!
By now the sun was shining bright and warm with some wind and I had lunch on the terrasse before doing anything else (my body doesn’t work with sweet stuff all day!).
After showering and washing we met up in the bar of the albergue to decide our evening plans. Our original plan had been to cook something. My body really demanded something light after yesterday evening. Nevertheless, we were all in a very lazy mood and it didn’t take much convincing until we settled for the pilgrims menu.
With this decision, we had lots of spare time until dinner and spent it in the common room playing cards and pool (I had totally forgotten how much I love pool!).
Around 8, we went down to the bar and sat down on a big table together with some other pilgrims we had met before. My plan to give my body a break and not drink alcohol and eat too much today failed miserably. There was salad, stew, chicken with fries, delicious goat meat with potatoes and cheese flan and cranberry cream for desert. Also, they had lots of wine with Gaseosa, my favorite drink from Almería and I couldn’t say no.
We had lots of fun together and went to bed at 10, extremely full again.
We are starting to get afraid of the end of the Camino now. We would like to just go on and not have an end date and don’t want it to be over so soon. I would like to just keep walking and thru-hike the whole world, preferably on paths and through landscapes like today’s.
