GoGeezGo : Via de la Plata

Early start for Laza

While hiking Spain’s 624-mile Via de la Plata pilgrimage route this spring, I loved visiting with other peregrinos and exploring the remote landscapes, medieval cities and Roman ruins along the way.

But if you are tempted to try this path yourself, be forewarned: It’s more challenging than the three other more popular caminos I’ve sampled—the Frances, the Norte and the Primitivo.

Indeed, I would describe the Via more as a quest than a long hike, requiring what my Finnish friends call sisu—the never-say-die, stoic determination that the Finns proudly say describes their national character.

Part of the reason that the Via is harder than many of Spain’s other caminos is it’s longer. The Camino Frances, Spain’s most popular peregrino route, by way of comparison, is more than 100 miles shorter.

The Via, which links Sevilla in the south to Santiago de Compostela in the north, also has fewer services on it than the other more-popular caminos, requiring pilgrims to carry more of their own food and water. The scarcity of services also requires pilgrims to hike farther between resupply points and the albergues or other places to sleep for the night.

Due to these features, relatively few pilgrims attempt the Via route, and the resulting lack of potential companions is a turnoff for some.

Santiponce

In addition, because the Via follows a less-traveled path, English speakers are harder to find on this route than on other caminos I’ve hiked.

But for me, the remoteness and unpopularity of the Via were positives. Although I’m not antisocial, I prefer to hike solo at my own pace. Besides, I often found plenty of company, including an English speaker or two, at the albergues I checked into in the evenings.

Among the things I loved about this ancient Roman trade route were the shadeless, barren landscapes that characterized much of it.

I also enjoyed exploring the beautiful Catholic churches along the way.

During a torrential rainstorm, I was the only visitor inside Zamora’s magnificent cathedral for an hour one morning, and I was moved by the experience, as a huge, 16th century Flemish tapestry hanging from the ceiling fluttered beside me.

Zamora cathedral

I also thought the 10th Century Romanesque church in Santa Marta de Tera was amazing. There, at 8 am on the spring and autumn equinoxes, sunlight shining through an oculus in the stone wall behind the altar illuminates a stone carving of what I was told was a martyred saint being carried to heaven by angels.

The rear exterior wall of the church also includes a stone carving of what is said to be the first depiction of Saint James, or Santiago, in Europe.

The Roman ruins in Santiponce, Caparra and Merida were simply awesome. I walked an extra 10 miles around Merida one afternoon and into the evening, just sightseeing. I also loved the castles and walled cities, and particularly those in Puebla de Sanabria.

In one of the odder coincidences of this trip, I ran into David Landis, a Facebook friend I had never met in person before, in a small bar in Campobecerros, a dusty little town in the middle of Spain’s remote, shadeless outback.

I was drinking an Aquarius (similar to Gatorade) con hielo (with ice)in the bar when David walked in, his short-billed cap identifying him as a cyclist. He ordered a burger and joined me at my table.

It was not until he told me he was from Harrisonburg VA, 120 miles west of my Virginia hometown, that I recognized him from his Facebook photo. I had been following him on Facebook because he and his wife publish camino guidebooks and he had developed a trans-Virginia gravel cycling route I was interested in.

Turned out that, while I was hiking the Via, he had been riding his bike north from Morroco and just happened to stop at this little Campobecerros bar while I was also there. What are the chances? Not sure how you would even begin to calculate the odds of this meeting happening.

Landis

One of the attractions to hiking Spain’s caminos for me is its affordability.

The pilgrim-only public albergues I usually stayed in this year, which offered a bunk and a shower and maybe access to a communal kitchen, ranged in price from €3 to €15 per night. The menu del dias served by many restaurants along the caminos—three-course meals that generally included a starter, entree, dessert, bread, wine and/or water—cost anywhere from about €10 to €15 (or a bit more in the larger cities).

Among my favorite albergues this year were the Albergue de Peregrinos in Fontanillas de Castro, the Albergue de Castilblanco de los Arroyos and the Albergue Casa Leiras 1866 in Dornelas.

Southern Spain gets too hot to hike safely in the summer. So spring and fall are the go times on the Via.

I ate the whole thing

While I was walking between March 13 and April 24, the temperatures ranged from the low 30s in the mornings to the 80s in the afternoons. So fortunately I was carrying warmer layers for the mornings, including gloves (and a sleeping bag for the often-unheated albergues at night)and a broad-brimmed hat for the afternoons.

Alas, with my March start, I got caught in the tail end of southern Spain’s rainy season. In the early going, it rained off and on for more than a week, flooding parts of the trail and turning other sections into muddy quagmires.

At times, the trail conditions were so bad that I had to walk paved highways to get around the arroyos in the bottomlands and the worst of it.

Wading one crossing

Though English speakers were harder for me to find on the Via than on the more popular routes I’ve hiked, I was able to communicate adequately with my rudimentary Spanish. Other pilgrims who spoke little or no Spanish seemed to get along fine relying on the Spanish-translation apps on their phones.

During the trek, I took one rest day, in Zamora.

The farthest I hiked in one day was 23.6 miles, between Fontanillos de Castro and Tabara, according to my iPhone app.

One of the most exhausting sections for me was the 59.3 miles over three days between Puebla de Sanbria and Laza.

Relying on the route’s official mileage as the measure, I hiked an average of 15.3 miles per day.

In the Aesop’s fable about the race between the tortoise and the hare, the tortoise wins by proceeding slowly but surely. And the game plan I have used to complete all of my caminos thus far is to emulate the tortoise.

A lot of the hares—the overly ambitious folks who try to hike too far too quickly too early in the going—seem to end up dropping out altogether or taking taxis or the buses between stages due to injuries.

Blisters and other foot and leg injuries seem to be key problems that sideline them.

I had zero health issues on the Via, hiking mostly in my usual Chaco sandals. Butfor this camino, I alternated between the sandals and a pair of Altra Lone Peak running shoes, which offered more protection on the muddy trails and on the cold,rainy days.