Galicia

We’ve been walking for a few days now in Galicia, the final region of Spain on our Camino. It’s also the fourth language we’ve encountered on this Camino - French, Basque, Spanish, and Galician (5 if you count the Catalan we heard in Barcelona).

The change in language was immediately evident in our first Galician town - O’Cebreiro; the “O” prefix is more Portuguese than Spanish. Turns out Portuguese and Galician have the same language root; I heard some Portuguese pilgrims speak to a Galician barkeeper and they seemed to understand each other easily. The Spanish that folks speak in rural Galicia also sounds different. It’s softer and more fuzzy - as if they’re speaking Spanish with a Portuguese accent.

Galicia reminds me of the UK in some ways. There are rolling green hills sectioned off with fences and hedges. It’s quite rainy. There are bagpipes. Drystone walls and slate-roof houses. Coppiced forests. Gorse everywhere.

There are differences though. The farms are much smaller and have fewer animals, so the land looks less “sheepwrecked” with longer and more luscious grasses. (Maybe the Camino just doesn’t take us past factory farms, but Galicia is much poorer than the UK, and I wonder if the farmers just don’t have the capital for huge operations.).

There are also funny little grain storage huts called Hórreos, which mostly store corn and supposedly protect it from the rain and the rats.

It’s a beautiful part of the country - spooky mist in the morning, rolling landscape, moss and rivers everywhere. All these verdant vistas are thanks to the rainfall, which we’ve walked through every day since crossing the mountains into the region. Sun is in the forecast for tomorrow; wish us luck.