7 hours of solitude

So I thought to myself that since I had been sitting on a delayed train for 12 hours yesterday drinking coffee that walking all night would be a good idea to escape the heat and other peregrinos. I'm not sure if the idea was a good one or not but I spent the hours between 10pm and 6am walking a few dozen kilometers from Ponferrada Spain to Cacabelos. My only company in the night were the moon, stars, the disembodied phosphorescent eyes of cats, and the hordes of yappy horrible dogs that liked to wait until I was next to their house to start barking. At times when the road angled upward it felt like I was walking into a sky boiling over with stars. I arrived in laughably named Cacabelos around 6am to find that the Hermitage for pilgrims didnt open until 12. But then I noticed people leaving their rooms open as hey departed and hermit-crab like, I moved into the abandoned shelter until 8am when the Hostel office opened next door. Today I am recuperating from last night with a shower and bandaids for my feet. I just ate a huge pilgrims meal, and then somehow wandered into a cellar filled with lawn chairs and gigantic hundred gallon wooden barrels of wine which was being dispensed at 40 cents a cup. I ducked the sun for a few minutes to sample the light cool wine and had a broken spanish conversation with the old proprieter about mushroom foraging after I saw the toad stooly calendar on his wall. I can´t wait to upload the pictures of the place with it's grape trellises, ancient casks, drinking gourds, chandeliers, spider webs, and happy Spaniards.