10/25/15 Mato-Casanova to Ribadiso

 A beautiful fall day in the forests and country pastures

Maria was our host at the Alburgue we stayed in last night that was situated a distance off the Camino Trail. She came out for a morning walk with me this morning to show me the special back route to The Camino Trail to get me on course for the day. She spoke little English and me minimal Spanish so we got into " acting it out or using sound effects " mixed with the words each of us knew. We developed a great rapport in less than 24 hours!

Beautiful backroad she brought me to that ultimately connected me with the Camino route

Started the day out with a beautiful meadow view!

It's always interesting to see the "mixed use" of land. Some for planting various crops, some for the animals, some for personal gardens adjacent to the bigger operation and some it seems for just the scenic beauty with trees and interesting rock features , wild flowers left randomly in place.

Our beautiful stone landscaped path leading all of us out of the 1st little town 

Natural waterfall and bridge bringing us into the City of Melide 

A busy Sunday in Melide with an open market & lots of people milling about...including whole families out in the City to eat, shop and socialize

Look at the colors and variety of plants in this beautifully "landscaped wall" that bordered one of our walking trails

A sturdy looking draft horse . Interesting that in the background in this field was a man hand tooling large granite slabs.... Multi tasking...between animal care and stone working ( large variety of farm animals besides this beautiful horse)

Another example of our beautiful pathways in a days walk

Too funny! Some folks camped out on the side of the road with their donkies to entertain the pilgrims as we walked by on this beautiful sunny Sunday morning

A photo for Cat Lovers... Finding a warm place in the sun on ancient stone ruins

These little houses on stilts are everywhere and decorated in many and varied ways... Today we finally discovered what they are for!.... They store the food for the animals. This one is filled with shucked corn on the cob. Secondary use is part of a clothesline system.

Pilgrims on the trail.... Beautiful! This is before the many tough uphill trails began

This hill may not look like much... It was 4 tiered asphalt and each tier got steeper as we ascended , it seemed we would never catch our breath and be on flat land again! Alas ... finally at the top, the gal that was huffing and puffing up the hill next to me offered to take my photo and I took hers to commemorate our big successful uphill climb! 

I think I can , I think I can affirmations ... carried me through along with my rhythmic yoga deep breath work!

Blue skies shining at me , nothing but blue skies do I see .... I sang these lyrics a bit today 

Beautiful " Gate of the Day " award goes to this private residence

Darker clouds are rolling in just in time to cool this hiker off a bit

Entering this picturesque village of Ribadiso our home for the evening. 

Crossed a bridge into town over a clear river.... note the pilgrims soaking their feet after a long day of walking

Other side of Bridge... view with a natural waterfall and beautiful river setting amongst the cow fields and trees .

I missed Mariah as my walking partner today as she used this day to rest her knee that has tendinitis. 

Ironically today was the day that everyone I crossed paths with did not have English as a first language and very view as a 2nd or 3rd language.  I got creative and so did they with "looks like" , "sounds like"  and mixtures of words from languages. Humorous to say the least! 

I enjoyed everyone's "language efforts" today. I can see how many people went to the effort to communicate to be helpful and to have meaningful human connection. 

Another interesting day on The Camino! 

Two More Days to Santiago and you can feel the spirit rising on the path!

Wishing everyone a great week!

Mary and Mariah

Grannies on Camino