Boy, towns on this route have long names. I think the trains are so few as most of the space allowed for the timetable posters is taken up by the names of the stations.
Today will be my last day for obsessively measuring flights of stairs and steps as my Fitbit is now refusing to charge (but just for the record today was 124 flights of stairs). Actually that’s probably a healthy thing and I can now allow my arm to get an all-over tan rather than leave that watch strap mark which reminds me just how pasty I am in England. Being a techie of course the first thing I did on arrival in O Barco was buy a new USB charger. Which will now be a new weight in my rucksack and for no reason as that wasn’t the problem. Perhaps I can donate it to another needy pilgrim.
Today was uneventful but marked by some super views. The route ran westwards along the River Sil and it was a gentle way, marked only by some remarkably ugly towns. It’s almost as if the local council reckon that the locals have it too good and want them to feel some pain.
First stop was at a nicely sited picnic table. This is slate country. The table was a good quarter-ton slab
River Sil
After another few km I was rather hoping for coffee but was disappointed. In the little hamlet of Pumares they are welcoming sorts but do not look after their houses particularly well. I had a chat with one owner and asked how they coped without a staircase and a balcony with a missing floor. He seemed completely ok with the set-up. I took a photo of him which probably explains why he was quite so nonchalant.
So I exited Pumares without a coffee but having been consoled by a little multi-lingual buen camino sign stuck on a telephone pole.
We have bought a fair bit of slate for the house recently and while it looks nice I am really glad I live nowhere near where they actually produce the stuff. There were a number of slate works along the river and they were noisy and showed the usual level of environmental concern that you find when you leave Northern Europe.
It is, of course, immensely useful to have a nearby river to chuck stuff into. The Romans who pulled down the mountain that i saw yesterday would be delighted to see that the Senate and People of Rome Environmental Protection (Mines) Act of 102AD as amended in 103AD is still in operation. For those of you unfamiliar with this legislation the original Act said in Section 1 “Don’t make a mess of the world”. The amendment, passed the following year, added the words “unless it is too much effort to clean it up”.
So I arrived in O Barco de whatever and had that funny sensation that one always does when you hit a big town. I have no problem walking around in pilgrim mode, with socks drying on the back of the rucksack, hat swinging from side to side. One always forgets that one does look really, really odd to a 2018 crowd of town-dwellers. But that’s their problem.
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