The good, the bad and the ugly.....

The good...the really good, the stunningly beautiful....

We ended last night with a spectacular sunset. We started today with a beautiful sunrise.  At the top of a mountain.  It was stunning.  The whole walk today was beautiful.*  My pictures do not do it service.  The walk was just shy of 14 miles.  Bringing our total to 416 miles and using a Will James phrase, give or take a few miles.

Speaking of Will, we left a bit of Will’s spirit in the east, the north and the south today at the top of O’Cebreira.  We are walking west, so he will continue to experience the western direction of Spain.

Here are a million pictures from today.

I’ve thought of several songs...to describe how I feel and what I am seeing.

Carol King:  I feel the earth move under my feet, I feel the sky tumbling down.
Rodgers and Hammerstein:  Climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow....

The bad:

Our friend Sandra, has had a knee injury, but looks to be back ready to walk again tomorrow.

The ugly*:

I’ve posted pictures of the beautiful things we have seen.  So many beautiful things.  But I haven’t talked about what goes along with that.  I only have one picture that is ugly, so I will try to describe the others.  You have to take the good with the bad.  So, here goes:

The cows are beautiful.  The cow bells are wonderful to hear.  The “moo’s’ are real and really nice.  This part of the country is big on cows.  In fact, yesterday, we saw cows making more cows.  Multiple attempts.  When you walk through the little villages, the cows have walked through before you, which brings with it cow manure....you can’t really always avoid it.  And along with the cow manure comes cow manure odor.  And along with all that comes flies.

The horses are also beautiful.  And some people ride horses on part of the trail.  Which mean that horses do what horses do and leave mementos for those who follow behind.  And as much as you want to avoid these piles, you can’t always.  Not quite the same aroma as the cows....but the flies are the same.

I’ve taken lots of pictures of the dogs, not least because we miss Sandy.  But dogs also do what dogs do and as far as we can tell there aren’t any dog poop bags around here.

And then there is the occasional dead animal.  A dead cat on the side of the road, a dead calf who had been found by other hungry animals, and a dead....we aren’t sure, but here’s the picture.

A lovely dinner tonight with James and Nady, Helen, Sandra, Alberto, John and Magdelena.

Off to Sarria tomorrow.  6 more days.  Wow....