The High Point

Hi all,
On leaving Rabanal del Camino we climb up to the high point of the route. Well climb is a bit of an overstatement but it is a pretty demanding ascent. The views though are worth it, especially when the sun is rising and creating ever changing shadows on the land below.

At the top of the (big) hill sits the "Cruz de Ferro" at 1504m (which is a lot of feet for those who can calculate it). Pilgrims are supposed to bring a stone from their home country and deposit it at the base of the cross. Not knowing this wee detail, neither Greg nor I had brought a stone. Anyway we were carrying enough with us without adding a stone to the load.

There are a whole range of artifacts left by those how passed by. Old shoes, caps, Tshirts, letters, pictures etc. The one that caught my imagination was an old fashioned alarm clock. Now that pilgrim was really fed up with the early rises.

I said earlier on that there had not been on cross word heard in three weeks (maybe two at the time of writing) but that morning nearly broke the spell. We were all admiring the structure when a man and wife cyclist team arrived and the man proceeded to park his bicycle at the base of the wee hill below the cross and took a picture of it. He then took the second bicycle, accurately positioned next to the first and took another picture. They did not take photos of themselves, just the bicycles. It appears that "Care in the Community" in Spain is not working. I can just see the expressions on the neighours faces when those two photos are presented for admiration.

I was so dumbfounded by the callous indifference to this centuries old monument that the bicycle nuts had gone before I had the chance to shout at them. I shouted anyway but they did not hear me.

Anyway I have a pretty good picture of the cross which I will add later (probably when I get home next week) but for the moment you may want to get a glance at the following site, Cruz de Ferro, to see what it looks like.

Pretty nifty but you can´t see the alarm clock.

From then on it was literally slightly downhill then uphill for quite a bit and then really downhill it was. Went on for hours and at this point the sun decided to have one of it´s really shiny, hot, boiling and blistering days.

Aside: Unless you are really keen on the sun don´t ever do this in August.

For those who have walked the West Highlknd Way think of the worst part of the descent into Kinlochleven and then give it attitude. To add to all of this I lost my trusty "Excaliber" (nod to Daniel in Tarbes) just after getting into Molinaseca, the next stop on the road, when I stopped to top up the water bottles.

At the end it was the usual practice though this time the beer moved up to the top of the task list. Enough said.

cheers,
Arthur