Cruz de Ferro

We reached an important Camino milestone today- the iron cross. This spot is the highest altitude of the whole Camino. We hiked about 7km uphill without any trouble and left the stones we have been carrying at the foot of tbe cross. Emily carried a rock from Elise's house, a rock her granddaughter found for her.Mona put her rock from San Antonio in a seashell at the base of the cross.She also left a pretty rock she found in the Pyrenees. I put mine on a bigger rock. I actually left two stones as well-one that I brought from home which I had picked up on the beach in Long Island while visiting Dan's family. The second stone was a heart shaped one I found here in Spain. I wrote 45 on it to commemorate our 45th wedding anniversary which is coming up in a couple of days. There are many stories about the significance of the cross. It is most commonly said that you leave a rock that you have carrying and that symbolizes leaving behind burdens. (The wedding anniversary doesn't quite fit that, but I wanted to leave a rock in honor of it anyway!)

Emily is placing her stone

Mona at the Iron Cross

There were dazzling views all day long-until about 5 PM when we finally hobbled into Molinaseca, a 25.1 km day! But from the cross it was all downhill-literally and figuratively!  It was probably in the top three of our hardest days. Mona was able to get a ride down from the cross  with a couple of other in a injured pilgrims. She was dropped off a couple of towns ahead. Emily and I thought we would catch up with her in an hour or so. We were surprised that it took almost three hours. We felt like mountain goats on the narrow, stony path! We had to very carefully pick our way along a steep descent. When we rejoined with Mona we still had about 8km left to walk. We loved walking through areas of heather and sections with lavender but the downhill continued on and it was long, hot and kind of dangerous, especially because we were so tired. Every step had to be carefully taken so that we wouldn't slip.

Photo taken by John from Ireland. John had one bad knee at the start of the day and two bad knees by the end of the day...and he's only in his 20's. We're still smiling because the steep part hadn't started yet!

"Keep going"

  

A couple more things...

• We saw a couple from Maine that we had met on our first night in St. Jean, the night before we started walking! They were doing well.
• A few days ago we met a couple from New London, NH. His name is Bob or maybe Rob Freitas and his wife is Karen V. He asked me if I knew my Enfield representative. He is a friend of Roger and Anne Dontonville.
• We ran into our friends from Australia again-Peter, Rhonda and Terry. We are always so happy to see them. Rhonda has some foot issues and is going to bus ahead a bit. We may do the same.
• There is a college professor, Liz, here with a group of students from Northeastern. They just started yesterday. I walked with her for a while and enjoyed the conversation. She lived in Durham for a while growing up.
• We have seen two young women from Sweden a couple of times. What is really amazing is that one of them is a mom who is hiking with her six month old baby! Signing off for the night.