Chapter 28: Villafranca de Bierzo to Laguna de Castilla.

Well, we’ve entered our final leg of the walk. Spain is getting a lot smaller, and…stinkier.

We started our walk on Monday to Villafranca de Bierzo, and Becky stopped REALLY often. I started to wonder why, and soon realized it was because her brilliant tactic of walking the rest of her Camino in sandals had one major, unforeseen flaw.

Turns out, most of the Camino is not paved, it is, in fact, crush stone. This means that every step becomes an opportunity for the road to do this:

So it was, sufficed to say, slow going for a while. We eventually did get walking at a pretty decent clip, and the first 20 kms of our day was actually really awesome.

The little village of Villafranca was really quaint, and oddly filled with water fixtures. Waterfalls, fountains and all kinds of aqueduct systems lined the city. When we finally left, we walked for quite a while underneath the highways into Galicia, the next province.

This part of the walk was a bit nerve-wracking to be honest, Gary was anxious to get food, and there wasn’t much until a town with some kind of Saracen castle in it, at around 15kms into the day. We walked for quite a while through the woods as well.

At the end of the day, we knew there was a 5 km uphill climb, and it was going to be awful, so we stopped in the town where we could access food and money, and got enough for the next couple of days and sat on a roadside and ate lunch. Then we began our ascent.

This part of the journey was mostly farmland and grazing fields for cattle. Apparently there was a man who sold an option of going up the hill on horseback, but it was 40 Euros, and that’s absolutely insane.

The next 5kms was…Grueling. The scenery was gorgeous but the climb was straight up and loose gravel. It took a lot out of us, and at one point, Gary began mapping out how many steps we had left. It was pretty arduous.

Not only that, but because there was a TON of cattle, the whole trip kinda…smelled…like manure. Every sharp breath in was a reminder that there were cows close by.

Turns out though that Gary has a little soft spot for cows, and spent a lot of time mimicking their moos…hilarious.

The last 400 yards, however was the worst. We had lost Gary and had ended up about half a kilometer behind him…which was just enough space to fit a manure trailer behind a tractor. Exactly as Becky and I rounded the last corner before our last little town, the farmer decided his field had been laden enough in shit, and he pulled out onto the road in front of us. We walked behind that shit-dripping farm equipment breathing entirely through our mouths. It was rancid. I’ve never smelled anything so bad.

The beer I had that night was the best I’ve ever had. The best. We are now 5kms into a 10km steady climb, so tomorrow should be tons of fun. We will keep you posted.

Thanks for continuing to read! We are a few days from being done, and tomorrow should be pretty, so check in again. Lots of love from Shitsville, Espana!