Day 20 (5/31) El Acebo to Molinaseca

Despite not going to bed until well after 4AM (courtesy of the Western Conference Finals), we rallied and were out the door by about 8AM en route to Molinaseca. Deya made a special effort to get us lodged in Molinaseca because we loved it so much in 2024 but weren't able to stay the night. 

The walk itself was pretty chill, with the caveat that I stayed on the road most of the time because my knees are absolutely toast on downhill walks--Cory brought me a second knee brace when he arrived. The views were spectacular the entire walk, and crossing the bridge over the river into Molinaseca is pretty magical. Nearly all of the students arrived ahead of us, and it was fun to see a big swam of them playing hackey sack, reading, or relaxing by the river. Jeff rallied a crew for some bocce ball while I listened to my audiobook and napped briefly because staying up until 4AM to watch basketball is a young person's game. Our group had a fabulous dinner by the river before calling it a night. 

Day 19 (5/30) Rabanal to El Acebo

(Written on 6/1)

Happy Birthday, Eimee!

Today's quest involved leaving Rabanal and hiking a pretty steep uphill for several miles until we reached Cruz de Ferro (Iron Cross). I have a post that contextualizes the Cruz de Ferro from 2024. Prior to reaching the Cruz, we ran into a German peregrino who had fallen on the trail and busted her head/face open pretty badly, so we helped her up, got her cleaned off, and back into town. She ended up being okay (we ran into her again on 6/1 and she was healing up), but it looked like a gnarly fall.

Man, I could not for the life of me remember what happened after CdF--I had to look up photos on Cory's phone and the syllabus :) to remember our final destination--el Acebo. Another day of really solid cafe stops with good company, good food, and incredible views.

We did not stay in el Acebo in 2024; we bussed through it and stayed in Ponferrada. El Acebo was super neat--it's a smaaaaallll town but the lodging had incredible views. We stayed in a swanky new private albergue and were able to watch the Champions League final as a large group. PSG ended up winning in PKs after 26/27 of our group was going for Arsenal. 

If that wasn't enough sportsball, we took a poll to see how many of our group would be interested in watching Game 7 of the Western Conference NBA Finals at 2AM. 12 folks voted yes; 5 folks actually showed up. Way to go, Toby, Lauren, Jeff, Cory, and me..kind of. I slept most of the second half, but from the parts I remember, it was a good game!