Distance: 17.31mi/27.85km
Elevation Gain: 893ft/272m
Time: 6h 40m
It’s only day 4 and it feels like I’ve been here for weeks, and yet it also feels like it’s barely the start.
We started the morning early in Foncebadón. We shared coffee with other fellow peregrinos before we started the trek to La Cruz de Ferro, which is one of the highest points in the whole Camino (1500m tall, or almost 5000ft (imperial measurements will never make sense to me, except miles I guess)).
La Cruz de Ferro’s meaning and purpose is for you to unload your burdens, whatever they may be, in the form of a rock in which you bring from your home and carry from your start of the Camino. (Considering I started from León instead of Saint Jean, I felt like I had to bring a slighter bigger rock than most. I also felt like I’ve had a lot of burdens to carry lately, so the size, although originally an accident, did mean a lot to me).
My dad and I unloaded our burdens (his three small rocks, mine one large one) about 3 km in, and kept going.
Today was A LOT of descent. My knees could only take so much of the steep, rocky decline. However, it was absolutely beautiful. It was a foggy, cold start but eventually the sun peeked out from the clouds and highlighted the beautiful rolling hills of the Spanish countryside. I smelled pine along the way and we mooed at the cows that were grazing in the fields (they mooed back, in case you were wondering).
We stopped along the way in some pueblos, grabbing an Irish coffee in the first one, and with my favorite being Molinaseca, which I really wish we could’ve stayed in (it’s known as one of the most beautiful pueblos in Leon, if not Spain). At this point, with “only” 7-8km left, I felt like my feet couldn’t take any more rocky descent. So we decided to take a “shortcut”, which really meant we would be walking along the road/sidewalk instead of taking the trail. We walked through what looked like the suburbs of Spain with large houses, lawns, and roads. But beautiful and arguably better architecture nonetheless. With such a smooth descent, we even started jogging down the hills with our backpacks, which felt much kinder to our feet and knees than stomping down the hills.
We finally made it to Ponferrada in the early afternoon, and explored the nearby castle after showering and dropping our stuff off.
We had dinner with our Spaniard friends and had a nightcap at a local tavern that we stumbled upon just a block away from our hostel.
Goodnight for now, and another 20+km day tomorrow for my poor poor feet.
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