El Ganso to Foncebadón

June 2nd - El Ganso to Foncebadón
We had a great night's sleep and started out our walking day feeling good. And what a day it was! This is the kind of day that keeps bringing me back to the camino! Yesterday we  gained about 200 kilometers in elevation without really noticing it and today we would go up to about 1350 feet. It was definitely uphill all the way but it was such a beautiful day that the elevation gain was hardly noticeable. This is definitely one of my favourite walking days  and Suzy said it felt like her best day yet. Most of the people who walked with us yesterday went further so of course they were ahead of  us and the people who were in the town behind us didn't catch up with us so we felt like we had the mountains to ourselves all day.

The smells were really wonderful today. Initially it was the spicy smells of lavender, thyme and rosemary and a bit later the tangy smell of the scrubby pine trees added to the perfume. Then as the sun  swung around, the sweet smells of the other wild flowers were added to the mix. And it's hard to explain the beauty of fields of  heather (technically erica) which were initially white, then white with yellow broom and erica and then finally pink and purple. We wallowed in the beauty all day, taking dozens of pictures, smelling the beautiful smells and finally arriving at the village of Foncebadón. This is the 'abandoned' village made famous  by Shirley Maclaine who fought off the wild dogs with her sticks and finally was finally able to make her was through town in safety. That was quite a few years ago and the town really was uninhabited in those days and there may well have been a pack of wild dogs. Certainly the camino forums still get get questions about those dogs.

But things change and the village is no longer uninhabited. There are three albergues, a couple of small tiendas or food stores and at least three restaurants - and hardly any dogs let alone wild ones. We saw two dogs and both were completely prone for most of the time. We did have an nice meal at a place that drew about a dozen carloads of people up from the city to have a Sunday meal. It was called La Taberna de Gaia apparently also found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/latabernadegaia