Day 11 - April 15 - Foncebadon to Ponferrada

Today we spent the day going from Foncebadon to Ponferrada. Two Km from Foncebadon we arrived at the peak of our wall, the Cruz de Ferro. This is the spot on the camino where pilgrims leave a stone. You can look,up,the symbolism online. I brought a special stone to leave at the cross. It was one of the gall stones the surgeon gave when he took out my gall bladder nearly thirty three years ago.

After a small climb past,the cross, we started a descent of over one Km all the way down to Ponferrada. The walk took a toll on all of us. We found out that going downhill is tougher than going uphill. While going uphill takes physical effort, going downhill requires more attention to the terrain and is much harder on the knees and other joints. It drained us. It didn't help either that the path was full of stones making it extremely difficult during long segments.

It wasn't all bad. The day was beautiful, the air fresh, and the scenery picture perfect. We passed along a few towns that seemed to have been taken out of storybook drawings. Amazing.