Media (7)
From dawn silence to shared walking: a day that puts everything back in line.
July 8: departure from Molinaseca, passage through Ponferrada, and progress toward Villafranca / Cacabelos.
July 8 started in the dark, alone, shortly before five. After the broken-up stage of the previous day I needed to get back into the rhythm of the real Camino: steady pace, clear head, open eyes on the landscape. The first hours were beautiful exactly for that: cool air, roads still empty, boot sound, and that clear sensation of still being in the right place at the right time.
Leaving Molinaseca and approaching Ponferrada, I found again the beauty of the route in simple details: the light changing slowly, fields opening up, villages appearing and disappearing along the track. The Camino, when lived like this, is not only movement: it is a long breath.
Later I rejoined Andrius and we walked together for a stretch, with a breakfast stop. During the morning Francesco joined too: at one point I was behind them while they walked singing in chorus a little Latin song, “un dos tres cinco seis siete.” A light, absurd, beautiful scene, one of those that immediately change the tone of your day.
We arrived in Cacabelos around 12 and stopped there. Francesco, faithful to his style, wanted to immortalize the moment in front of the town sign doing one of his gags: pose in “I’m pooping” style under the “Cacabelos” sign, and we all burst out laughing.
In the afternoon I stayed in Cacabelos with Catherine.
Meanwhile Andrius, Francesco, and Lucia (the girl met at the tent place) were in Villafranca. Francesco was doing a great job with Andrius: he kept making him smile. In the evening, while the three of them were having dinner in Villafranca, Francesco sent me two photos of Andrius smiling; in one there was even Andrius himself taking a group selfie with the three of them. Andrius was going through a very hard period in which he was extremely low in spirits, and these moments with Francesco were clearly helping him feel better.
That scene stayed with me, because it told well the spirit of those days: we separated for a few hours or a full stage, but we still stayed connected. In the end it was a full day in the right way: first the good solitude of dawn, then the shared stretch with Andrius and Francesco, and finally the evening at distance, between Cacabelos and Villafranca, with the same atmosphere of lightness.
Morning coolness, golden light rising on the trails, steady steps, voices singing ahead of me, and that clean tiredness that comes when you walk well.
The best days are not the ones in which you do more: they are the ones in which you stay in harmony among landscape, pace, and people.
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Day notes