We were lucky that Monday is market in Villafranca. Local cheese, bread, chocolat, and fruit (and lots of water) filled our packs as we crossed the bridge, ignored the signs, and started up the steep Pradela route, leaving the road and all the other pilgrms behind. A last hand- lettered sign warned, "Ruta muy dura: solo por caminates buenosos - no encuentra ayudos." ("Very hard trail: only for strong hikers - no emergency help available.") As we climbed 1,000 feet in the first mile, then kept climbing, we were grateful for the shade of olives, then peach, then quince, chestnut, pine and oak. We crossed a forest fire from last year, now brilliant with wildflowers, and shared lunch with the only other peregrinos crazy enough to choose this high route: a young German woman, and an Austrailian woman our age from Brisbane who laughed at the heat, but gladly drank our cold juice after hours of winding sunny slopes. A long high ridge clothed in carefully-tended chestnut trees, a long steep descent to Trabadela, and we find ourselves grateful for the only food available, empanada and local wine, by the rushing river, while the neighbors set out lettuce and onions in black soil. Tomorrow the big climb into the celtic lands of Galicia!
