The Big Walk

The Montes de Leon – Day 15

This morning we started so early we walked for thirty minutes in the dark, wearing our head torches to help cars to see us. The camino forms the main street of Molinesca, where it is lined by old limestone houses with galleries and a graceful arched pilgrim bridge. Only a few days ago we were photographing any attractive buildings and suddenly they are everywhere. The same thing has happened with storks, which now are appearing on church towers, electricity pylons and special concrete stands built to hold their nests. They are welcome residents to any village, as bringers of good luck.

Higher up we pass the last village, El Acebo, before continuing the ascent. The mountains of Leon we are now climbing are much wilder than the Sierra dos Ancares, with steep sides of barren scrubland. High up there’s an abandoned village. Or almost abandoned – there’s a single building occupied where a man named Tomas still provides free lodging and meals for pilgrims. He used to be a Madrid businessman, but when he walked to Santiago he had an epiphany and decided to spend the rest of his life helping pilgrims, styling himself as a modern Templar Knight. He restored a barn in this lonely spot and converted it into a refuge, relying entirely on the donations of passers by. We’d heard all about this place from walkers coming the other way – staying with Tomas was said to be an unforgettable experience. There’s no running water here and hygiene is not a priority. At one time the local government tried to force him out by cutting off the only amenity – the electricity supply. Tomas responded by going on hunger strike on the steps of Leon city hall, and officials eventually backed down. As we approached Tomas rang the hostel bell, as he does for all approaching pilgrims, but after exchanging greetings we decide we’d rather carry on – “it’s only eleven in the morning”, an excellent excuse.

We continue up to the Cruz de Ferro, the highest pass on the whole camino at over fifteen hundred metres. A road also crosses the mountains here, and a campervan is parked by the giant cairn. We meet the driver, John, an Englishman in his fifties. He spends each summer driving up and down the camino in his van, giving welcome cold drinks to pilgrims in exchange for a donation. We later found he had a reputation as something of a ladies’ man, and when we left him he was trying to chat up an Irish woman who’d just arrived at the pass.

It proves to be an epic day, and we’re exhausted by the time we reach the refugio at Rabanal. This one is run by the British Confraternity of St James, and is manned by their volunteers. I’m not sure processing pilgrims, washing sheets and cleaning would be most people’s idea of a holiday. When shown into our dormitory, we find we are sharing it with a family. By an amazing coincidence, Al and Dave are from our home town, York, and in fact are close friends of our next door neighbours. We’d heard they were walking the route and hoped to bump into them, but ending up in the same tiny dormitory seems ridiculous. They are walking the camino with their five small children and seem to be doing fantastically well, having started in Roncevalles near the French border. When some people don’t seem to be able to get out of their own house with one child, walking five hundred kilometres with five in tow seems an amazing achievement. They reckon it’s easy as long as they promise the kids an ice-cream at the end of every day.