Camino Primitivo, part 8: O Cádabo to Lugo

The view for most of the way

The last day of this section started earlier than planned. Liz was woken up in the middle of the night by some banging and howling outside. Some local yoot were up to no good. Julio got up and made sure the door was locked but Liz said the noise was a bit of a shock (I dozed on unaware, having left my mp3 player earbuds in to drown out the symphony of snoring that the six other chaps in the room were producing). The day dawned, cloudy but not raining, so we got everything together and set off as far as a bar round the corner for breakfast. A word about breakfast in Spain, it has as much importance here as The Star Spangled Banner has in Huddersfield, ie not a lot. Although the coffee is good, the accompanying squares of fairy cake (bizcocho), while pleasant enough, leave you with the sensation of not quite having prepared for the day. In the bar we were served two packaged cakes each, 8am is too early for the kitchens to be open in most places so the far more filling pinchos have to wait until later.

The main altar at Vilabade

In the ten minutes it took to eat it had started raining heavily. Stepping outside, I opened my umbrella to see that it had a couple of snapped spokes and a hole… it was a cheap one, but I hoped it would survive the day. We walked up the last uphill stretch for the time being and through yet more pine forests, this part of Spain is full of plantations serving a few paper mills, it’s pretty big business. The path was better today and we made good time. The rain stopped as we came down through Vilabade, where there was a big grey church which used to be part of a monastery. It reminded me of rural Ireland, mossy grey buildings and slate roofs and an overwhelming sense of catholicism. In Castroverde we stopped in a bar, where my rucksack became the departure point for the dozens of ants that had hitched a ride  from the albergue decided to make a dash for it. The sun came out, then went in again as we set off.

Only 5km to go, Liz takes a break, she's not dead.

We kept up a fine pace and didn’t feel particularly tired until the last 5k to Lugo (it was a longer day than the others, 30km) which was a pain. We had planned to eat in Lugo so we were running on empty (and energy bars). Lugo is on a hill but that hill is pretty small and surrounded by bigger hills so we didn’t see it until we crossed over the motorway. There had been some discussion about our plans. Julio had originally wanted to stay the night in Lugo and get the bus back the next evening, we had thought about getting the first bus out of Lugo and getting back to Oviedo as soon as we could. We eventually compromised and said we’d get the bus at 8:45 that evening. We headed to the albergue to dump our rucksacks, it was early, 3:30 so we were in time to eat. The chap in the albergue gave us a recommendation for where to eat and we did. Julio was determined to eat cocido gallego, which is a Galician stew, but nowhere served it while we were there so he had to content himself with knowing he could phone ahead for the next stage and pre-order.

Lugo in the rain, Julio's umbrella was as bad as mine

After lunch we took a stroll, it had started raining again, stronger this time and we took refuge in the cathedral. A warden noticed our muddy disheveled looks and came over to stamp our credentials. Then she offered to give us a tour of the cathedral, which is basically listing all the saints and virgins (I particularly liked Holy Mary of the big eyes) and a bit of the architectural history of the building. The rain had not stopped so we suggested to Julio that we get the earlier bus, leaving the town for the summer. Unfortunately there were no places left so we had to stick to our original plan and console ourselves with a wet walk on the roman wall. Lugo has an intact roman wall (originally with 85 towers) and I’m sure it’s lovely when the sun shines, but what I remember are the numerous houses with collapsed slate roofs, the damp and the moss and lichen growing on each wall. We killed time in a cake shop and then in a bar until the bus was due and then slept for the five hours back to Oviedo. The final part will be in the first week of August, it’ll probably rain then too.