Monday, June 1, 2026

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!


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