Day 24 - Villafranca del Bierzo to O’Cebreiro

On The Camino, you run into the same faces time and time again, which is usually great, but lately, I keep bumping into a Hungarian woman that stole my pillow in the mutinous albergue a couple of days ago. She is also my prime suspect for that monstrous fart in Hontanas. That’s beside the point though. The thing is that Camino etiquette dictates that I have to say Hola when I see her when all I want to say is that I know she stole my pillow. But, I digress...

If every albergue across Spain collected their noisiest bunks and put them in a single room, that’s where I slept last night. If someone got into bed, the bunk screamed. If someone rolled over in bed, the bunk screamed. If someone farted...you get the picture. At one point I just gave up moving at all which resulted in my right arm going numb. When I wriggled my fingers to get the blood flowing, the bunk screamed. It was absolutely horrible and I doubt that anyone in that room got more than three hours of solid sleep. But, tough titties, I had a mountain to climb. 

Today was uphill ALL DAY, the worst of which was roughly the last 8kms where the incline went (cue slide whistle) suddenly crazy, rising about 600m over that distance. There were some tough sections, steep, rocky, and horse shit spattered, but after however many hundreds of kilometers the legs were as ready as they’d ever be and I reached O’Cebreiro, crossing into Galicia, feeling tired, but not a quivering wreck, which was good. At the albergue, I dropped my pack and hit the showers. Which had no doors. There were a lot of retirement-age cocks swinging about in that place. I quickly cleansed myself, got the hell out of there, and hit the bar to kill any brain cells that may contain memories of that shower block. Well, my glass is almost empty so I’d better stop typing and order another. 

Distance - 28.9km

Difficulty - ⭐️⭐️⭐️ and a half/5

Camin-Oh no! - Shower cubicles without doors. I just don’t get why you wouldn’t stretch the budget that little bit further. 

Camin-Oh hell yeah! - A big ass beer after going uphill all damn day. 

@caminoagogo

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