via Sanabres Day 1 - Tuesday, 22nd March

We had answers on the Camino forum telling us not to walk the 40km diversion to Laxa as the signs suggested as the ‘normal’ Camino route was indeed open; one of the posts said that the other route was not very well marked and another suggested that it was the construction company who was trying to divert the Camino, as far as Galicia is concerned the route is still in use and the route is indeed still open just fine.

We set off walking at about seven when the sun was up and the air still a little bit chill. The guidebook we were using only had very rough maps and only mentioned towns and villages that had albergues in them so we went through several villages today without knowing where we were or how much further we had to go.

After the second village of the day we saw a young cat in a field who ran over to us for a fuss and then tried to play with the straps hanging down off our bags and then she cried when we left her!

There was a lot of road walking today and quite a bit of construction traffic (25 HGVs and three tractors) but we felt safe all of the time and a little bit of this traffic was carrying out repairs on the road (some of which meant that we thought a few of the arrows may have been destroyed).

We passed through three villages but none of these had any bars but we also passed through a lot of amazing scenery – on this stage of the Camino is quite high so the views are wonderful.

For dinner we stopped at a spot with a nice view and ate the bread and cheese that we had left over from yesterday and we had several drivers wave at us as they went past.

This night we stopped at the village of Campobecerros and there was a steep descent into the village which seemed to take forever. During it though we could see the construction work going on which was quite noisy. It was because of this work that the municipal albergue in Campobecerros was closed as it was being used to house workers so we went to the private albergue (arriving at about 13:45) which was one big room with bunk beds in it and then two toilets and showers in separate rooms through a door at the back of the room. The albergue was in the basement of a house.

The room was quite cold but they did switch the heating on after we had been checked in and only one other person came – a cyclist so we assumed that everyone else must have taken the other route.

During the day’s walk Becky had found a hot spot on her foot and so had put a blister plaster on it (whilst it was dry) but we found that during the day it had come off taking some of her skin off as well and leaving her with an injury that caused problems for the rest of our walk.

As there was no kitchen we went out to the bar that night but found that they didn’t serve anything until 8:30!  When it was time I had a mixed salad, pork and chips and then yogurt.

It was ten before we got to bed that night.