Almost Done!

When we awoke just outside Sarria, we realized our trip was almost over. We went to breakfast to figure out our route for the day, since our search for a hotel took us out of our way. At the table next to us, we met a gentleman from Barcelona who was also biking to Santiago, but while we hoped to finish in two more days, he would be arriving that evening. He would be biking 150 kilometers to achieve that goal. He told us we could follow an alternate route so we would not have to double back to Sarria and avoid some climbs. We looked at our maps and decided to follow his advice. We should have followed him. We turned onto what we thought was the suggested turnoff. We encountered a climb but felt assured it wouldn't be a long one. It would be the last thing we would be sure of for most of the morning. As we continued to climb and then eventually push our way, we realized we were going over a mountain. How big we did not know. We were too far committed to turn around so we kept on going up. The good news was that there was absolutely no traffic and the scenery was just beautiful. Along the way, Paul and I had a lively discussion about whether the Spanish gentleman decided to pull one over on two Americans or whether we took a wrong turn. Wanting to believe the best, we chose that we just turned onto an unmarked road. At one point into our several hour sojourn up the mountain, we were able to ride. It was a good thing because as we were passing a field of sheep, we encountered a large pack of very protective barking and growling sheep dogs in a variety of sizes and degrees of ferocity. It was the little ones trying to nip at my feet that made me the most nervous. We pedaled faster trying to outrun them while we heard a male voice shouting from behind a brick wall. We weren't doing so good at getting away when suddenly out of the field came our rescuer in the form of a petite wizened old woman brandishing a long staff. She began waving the stick furiously and yelling loudly at the dogs. The dogs quickly backed down. Paul and I got out there fast but later we wished we had gotten a picture of the old woman. She looked like something out of National Geographic. She had no teeth, she was wearing her
apron over her work clothes and her hair under a scarf. I was amazed by how fast she ran out of the field to call the dogs off because she was so tiny and looked emaciated. On our way again, we went back to climbing. Eventually, we reached the summit. We knew this because it's where the communication tower stood and all the trees were gone. All told, I think we climbed for about ten kilometers over several hours. And we still weren't sure where we were since it was clear we were on an unmarked road. Once at the summit, we started heading down. We thought we could see our destination off in the distance. St every fork in the road we headed towards what we thought was our goal. After descending somewhat blindly, what should we see but two peregrinos walking toward us and our shining beacon, the yellow arrow on the side of a building which also had a Grateful Dead Graffiti on it. Boy, were we relieved. We followed the camino down and after having spent a rather quiet morning disturbed only by the howling dogs, it was a little disconcerting all of a sudden to be caught up in a traffic jam of walking pilgrims, bikers and especially cows! At one point, we passed a group of pilgrims, but were caught with about a dozen other bike riders behind a herd of cattle being driven down the road by their mistress, who just kind of shrugged her shoulders as if to say, who knows when you'll get to pass. One of the bike groups was a little more aggressive and managed to spook the cows into letting us pass. We eventually arrived at our pre-destined lunch spot where we took a long-anticipated break. We sat and ordered lunch and then flew into panic mode...Paul could not find his BlackBerry. Now, this is a big deal. Aside from being our lifeline back home, it was also allowing us to communicate within Spain. We frantically called the hotel we left hours before only to be told by the hardest working man in Spain that we didn't leave it there. We immediately set to pulling everything out of our panniers to see if it got mixed in with our clothes. We still didn't find it. After resigning ourselves to its loss, we checked Paul's bike trunk bag one more time and low and behold, we found it hiding in a pocket where we had been certain it could not have been. Paul says we had a hard climb out of our stop, Portomarin, but to be honest, all the climbs are beginning to blur. My recollection is that the rest of the day was uneventful as we pedalled to our evening destination, Palas de Rei. After our debacle of the previous day, we had called ahead to make a reservation for the night. Only when we arrived at our hotel, they had no reservation and no room. I was very upset. I showed them Paul's phone and the log which proved I had called them the day before. When the man looked at the number, he indicated although I had called a hotel with their name, it was not their number. I called the number only to be told the hotel we wanted was a few blocks away. Problem solved and we were done for the night,