Yes, we are going back to the Camino. No, it is not the same one. Yes, we will end up in Santiago again, but we will start in Lisbon, Portugal. On this Camino we will only be walking 400 miles instead of 500. The question may come up “Why”? That question has surfaced in our conversations a few times, but it is almost a rhetorical question that leads to the next question, “Why not”? I’m not sure we could make anyone understand the “why” answers. It was just a life changing experience that you would just have to experience yourself. You can’t really describe the spiritual experience that it becomes.
We read many blogs and videos before we went the last time and people would talk about how it changed them spiritually or just as a person, but not many could tell you how. So, when we were asked how we thought it would change us, I would piously respond, “Well I don’t see it really changing me spiritually. I have been a Christian for 63 years. I’m pretty solid in what I believe, so I’m basically going to experience God’s nature in a different country. And maybe along the way I can share my faith and help someone else”. And although I had some of these experiences, that is not what happened to ME and Larry. (Yes, this is coming from me (Dereatha, or as Larry calls me, Dete), this time. I will be the blog writer, with Larry’s help of course on the specific facts—he is good at that.) Getting back to the Camino experience, I would like to share an example through someone else’s eyes. They shared this experience with me before we left on the last Camino. He said that as he experienced the quiet times of just walking, he began to contemplate his life, and he began to see all the people he had offended over the years. Then he began to realize that he needed to mend those relationships. So either on the trip or when he got home, he wrote them letters of apology and cleared up the offences.
While we were walking, we realized why this happens. We are so alone and quiet for hours, and had nothing to do but think. Yes, you are walking with others, and you have some conversations, but with everyone having a different pace, you soon separate ways. Even Larry and I did not always walk together. We did pretty good until around noon. I would be so excited in the morning that I could double step, because that is exactly what I had to do to keep up with his long stride. After that I slowed down and he would go ahead. We almost always stayed in sight of each other, but sometimes the curves in the road would separate our sights for short periods. Another reason we didn’t talk to others is because most spoke a different language, so we simply acknowledged each other with “Bien Camino”. So, there we were alone, with no one to talk to and listen to– but God. We had a chance to evaluate our life in its entirety. You see yourself as you really are—your purpose in life, your goals in all areas—spiritually, financially, relationships—everything. And not everything is a beautiful picture. You think of your “regrets” and whether or not you learned from them. When you realize that you didn’t in some cases, you experience sorrow, which brings about repentance, which draws you closer to what you “should have done”. Then the sorrow turns to joy when you realize you can go forward knowing that yesterday ended last night, because His mercies are new every morning.!!!
This week is prep week. We pulled out the backpacks, sleep sacks and other things we had bought for the last trip. I had to have new shoes, but Larry was able to wear his from last year. We have to stop the mail, see that Cecil will be well fed and seen about daily, and get some Euro’s from the bank.
This trip also required some very special money planning. We save every month for vacations. And depending on the complexity of the vacation it may take years. We saved for three years for the Hawaii vacation. But since this was a spur of the moment trip, we had to come up with some extra money—fast We budget every month for expenses, so the first thing we did was see if we could steal from one of the columns in the spreadsheet. We started with the food column. We budget a certain amount each month, so the only way to pull from that column was to eat cheap. The first thing we did was clean out and cook every from the refrigerator, freezer and pantry. We had some weird combinations some days, but we didn’t starve. We also ate a lot from our garden. A lot of days we had the same thing for several meals in a row. We also did not eat out unless we went with friends. Then we also have the grocery money from the month we are gone, so with a full month and a large portion of this month, that was enough to almost pay for the airfare to Portugal. Then we looked at some things we could sell. We had been talking about selling our golf cart for several months, because we really don’t use it. So it went on Marketplace and we sold it in a couple of days. That was enough to pay for our return trip. Now to come up with some money for food, and lodging for the time we are gone. We did this by credit card hacking,
No, not hacking other people’s credit cards, but hacking credit card companies. It is perfectly legal. I will explain this process. I do this with some hesitation because if someone does not have credit card control it could get you into trouble. First of all you must have a very good credit rating or you will be turned down. Do you get those credit card offers in the mail that says they will give you 60,000 miles? This would not appeal to you if you had no plans to travel so it would probably go in the garbage. What you may not realize is that is worth $600. You don’t have to buy plane tickets. But if you use the points for travel it can turn into $750 worth of points. Now the catch is that you have to spend from $3000-$4000 in the next four months. This is no problem for me this time of the year, because in the fall of the year, all my insurances, car tags, and property taxes come due. Plus Christmas buying comes in there. This does not count the air fares that I charge. So I actually had enough expenses to get three credit cards. So that is an extra $1700. That, plus my grocery money will probably be enough if we watch closely. Plus if I use some of the points for hotels and other travel expenses, the $1700 can become $2000. From everything we read, our daily expenses will be around $60-$80 Euros a day. Portugal is cheaper than Spain.
Besides when you charge taxes, insurances, anything, you are also getting points for that too. So, for example when I got $4000 charged on the first card, my points had gone from $600 to $930. This will happen with each of your cards, so that increases my $1700 to close to $3000 depending on the kind of expenses you are putting on the card–travel will get higher points than gas, or ordinary charges for example. So you get an idea of how this works. To help the process and find card deals, go to creditkarma.com and set up an account. It will tell you your credit score and will give you ideas of some cards that have promotions going. I find that the ones I get in the mail generally give more points. It also will list all of the credit cards that you have now and ones that you have closed in the past. When I max mine out with points and have them put my money in my bank account—yes most will deposit directly into your account—then I just put them in a drawer and not use them again. Some charge an annual fee, but you can downgrade the number of points that they give you for purchases and they will waive the fee, and if they won’t, just close out the card. None of this will hurt your credit rating, but some companies will look at your number of cards and make you wait a couple of years before you open another credit card.
Yes, this takes some figuring and there is a little work involved, but most everything that is worth anything requires some work on your part. I explained all of this because I get questions and maybe more comments like, “I wish I could afford to be gone a month.” Well this helps us afford it, plus, it is just fun!!! It is like a puzzle to me. I love spreadsheets, math and seeing how little I can spend. The less I can spend on me, the more I can give. God has put in us a desire to give. It does not always mean money either. Life can be purposeful and fun. This is just one way we enjoy life. The real challenge is, can I come home with no bills and maybe a little money in my pocket. We will see.
So this week we will pack everything and see how much it weighs. They suggest 15 pounds for women and 20 pounds for men. Mine last year weighed 18 pounds when I left. My goal this year is 10 pounds. I have included lighter weight clothing this time and smaller containers. So I think I can do it. When we get the backpacks packed, we will walk with them for a little while each day to get used to them again.
I hope you will follow along with us. The terrain is quite different that the Franciscan Camino. It goes along the coast in Portugal and is much more flat. It is broken into 23 stages instead of 33, but each stage is around 20 miles a day instead of 12-15 days. So we won’t be gone as long. We are super excited to see what lies ahead for us. It is not as well traveled as the last one, so the albergues are not as plentiful, so that will be interesting to see what accommodations we find. Of course we are excited about the different foods that the Portuguese eat. It is just such a great adventure, so just come along.
Day 1 August 26 Travel Day
Today started for us at 5:30. The clock was set for 6:00,
but we nearly always wake up before the alarm—you know the old folks thing. I actually thought I would sleep until 6:00 since the last time I looked at the clock before going to sleep it was nearly 3:00AM. Yes, the excitement always gets to me. Not Larry, he never in his life has had a sleep problem. If he ever wakes up in the middle of the night—he is sick. And I can count on one hand how many times this has happened in 51 years of marriage. I have never seen anyone in my life so at peace with the world. He literally believes and lives by the philosophy—“You do all you can and leave the results to God.” I have never seen him worry or be anxious about anything. (Except when he coached basketball which is a whole different story). He says that God has already written the book of our life—why should we try to mess up the chapters by worrying. Sometimes I hate him. I’m foolish enough to believe that God needs my help.
Our ride—thank you Kathy– arrived a couple of minutes early. She happens to work close to the airport in Charlotte, so this saved us money for long term parking and the hassle of finding our way to the airport. Friends are the best. A big shout out to her because she went about an hour earlier than normal to accommodate us. She has flexible hours, so she usually waits until later to avoid the traffic—which is terrible in the morning. But this morning she faced the jungle with us in tow. And by the way, it didn’t freak her out. She is a great heavy traffic driver. So, we arrived in plenty of time to grab a bite and calmly board our plane to Boston.
Once in Charlotte we received a message that our plane from Boston to Lisbon had been delayed so they were putting us on an earlier flight. This changed from an 8 hour layover to a 5 hour layover. But that meant changing airlines and the destination of our backpacks. We had several hours to get this done and gave us time to eat a relaxing lunch and get all the electronics charged. As you know we live on a strict budget, so we checked out all the food venues and their prices. We opted for a grilled chicken salad for me and a burger for Larry. Only $12. 54. So that meal with breakfast totals $35.23 for the day and that should be all our expenses for the day since we will be flying all night with no motel expenses. This is $31.73 in Euros. We are budgeting $91 Euros per day which is approximately $100 a day. This does not include plane fares. Remember these are almost free with the credit card hacking. We will not know until the end of the trip how this all pans out with our number of points, so the goal is to have money left over in the budget to cover any excess—if any. I’ll try not to bore you with all the details of expenses. But it does excite me to see and demonstrate how you can travel on a budget and enjoy it. And in my case, have fun. From now on I will just tell you how we ended up each day—whether or not we stayed within budget. I know I am a little weird and anal about this, but “different strokes for different folks”. I was laughing with my family one day about tattoos and the meaning of them. They were telling me that they signified something in ones life or life meaning etc. I said, “Well I don’t know what that would be for me.” (Trust me, I am not getting a tattoo). Brad said, “Mom it would be a tattoo of a fist holding money.” So I guess they know me well. So day one we are $60 under budget. That will come in good on days when we want to or need to
splurge.
We arrived in Boston and got on our new flight lined up. I was a little disappointed because on the earlier flight we were supposed to land on a little island off the coast of Portugal, but this flight went directly to Lisbon. So we boarded the plane. Very nice big plane—8 rows across. Very good movies. So this is where we will be spending the night. We will arrive in Lisbon around 5:00 in the morning. We are excited about what we will see. We will be in Lisbon two days preparing for the trip. There are just some things that have to be taken care of to insure that our trip will be as smooth as possible.
Going to eat dinner on the plane, and make use of the pillow and blanket the airline provided. See you in Lisbon.
Day 2 August 27 Lisbon
This day did not start too well. We have no backpacks. Remember they changed our flight from one airline to another and changed our boarding time from 10:30PM to 6:00PM? We were a little excited about that because we would arrive about 5:00 in the morning to get started on getting details out of the way so we could start enjoying Lisbon. When we went to the new airline to get everything changed, to TAP (Portuguese Airline), they assured us that our luggage had been switched to the new plane—not true. So now we have to sit at the airport waiting until that plane arrives with our backpacks, around 10:30. I know none of these times make sense, but it is because there is a 5-hour difference here from Badin Lake. The whole picture is this—by the time we get to our hostel, we will have been up all night!! But Kristi (our cousin who travels a lot) says, don’t go take a nap. Just make yourself stay up and go to bed at Lisbon bedtime, otherwise it will throw
your sleeping off for several days. So that is what we planned to do. But that didn’t happen. After we ate a delicious lunch of soup, salad and quiche we headed to our 2:00 check-in and we promptly took a two-hour nap. By this time, we had been awake for nearly 30 hours. We were dragging our feet so bad, so we gave into sleep.
After our two-hour nap, we headed out to find the credentials office to get our passport. This is the passport that we will use along the way to prove that we actually did the walk. We will collect stamps from restaurants,
churches, etc. as we visit them. Then we walked around in the old city to see all the sights around our hostel. The beauty here is remarkable. People and activities going on everywhere. We will be in Lisbon for two nights. As we are walking, we are looking for restaurants that serve sardines. That is the fish of the area. I’m not talking about a can of sardines, but whole fried sardines. Our guide book highly recommended them, so we will see.
After sightseeing for a few hours we still were not hungry for a big meal so we settled on splitting a pizza. The food in these countries is so great. All made with fresh ingredients. You just leave the restaurants feeling healthy. I can see where the average life span is six years more than in America. As we were walking, we found the restaurant we want to visit tomorrow for lunch. We have realized that this town deserves more than two nights. Such beauty and history in this city. We are going to take a tram to see as
much as we can. Well, actually we will be in Lisbon for more than two nights, it takes three days to just walk across it. Not looking too forward to that. We love the paths over the pavement.
After our pizza we headed to the room. It is 8:00 and I am heading to bed. The internet is horrible here, so there will be no blog posting tonight. It is not strong enough to download pictures or even get on the blog. We will head to a café in the morning that has internet.
Day 3 August 28th
We work up about 7:30 this morning feeling much better. I guess after nearly 12 hours of sleep, we should be feeling great. I can’t ever remember sleeping that long in my life. Of course, I don’t remember going without sleep for nearly 30 hours like the day before either. But anyway, we were raring to go. In these countries you need not get in a hurry for coffee (unless you have a way to make it), because nothing opens until 9 or 10. But why would they—it seems no one get up until 9 or 10. We got it all wrong in America. I could live abroad if it weren’t for family. Not that I hate America—I love it. I just love the laid-back atmosphere of Europe. I guess you can’t have it all.
So, since it was not 10:00 yet, we walked to the subway to get tickets for transportation for today. At 10:00, we went to the restaurant next door to our hostel and ate breakfast. Once again it was amazingly good. I had an omelet and Larry got granola with yogurt and fruit, coffee and a basket of bread. Then we split so we could have some of all of it. They have amazingly fast internet, so I sent the blog for the last two days.
After breakfast we went sightseeing. Our guide book told us to get some
type of transportation because you could never see it all by walking. I’m not so sure, if it takes 3 days to walk across it, but I know there are a lot of architecture, history and culture that we will miss if we do not move faster. I saw TukTuks around {a glorified golf cart), and that looked like fun. My friend Ben who travels to foreign countries talks about them in his blog, so we thought we would check them out. That conversation lasted about 5
minutes when we saw the price. It started out at 130 Euros. When he saw us hesitate about the price, he immediately went down to !00 Euros, because there were only two of us and his TukTuk held six. That made no sense to us. Looks like the more passengers the less money it would cost. He didn’t realize that was a whole days budget for us. So we opted for the tram. Our guide book said get on the 28 Tram. We did and it cost 6 Euros for both of us, and we got to see a lot more of the city. We didn’t of course get all the history behind everything we saw, but that’s ok. We can read that off the internet if we really want to.
After the tram ride, it was time for lunch. It amazes us how little food cost here. For lunch we had a meal that consisted of an appetizer of olives and bread, a main dish with a salad, drink (wine, beer, water or fruit drink) and dessert and it was 12 Euros and that included tax and of course there is no tipping in Europe. That $24 meal in the America would have been at least $50, not in including a tip. Larry got the Portuguese specialty—grilled
sardines (4 of them). They were about 6-8 inches long—not like canned sardines. He loved them. I tasted them and could have eaten them if I had no other choice, but I chose the cod. The specialty dessert here is Pastel De Nata. There is a famous shop that was the first to make them in the late 1800’s. They make them fresh and they are still hot and people come from all over to get them–like Britts doughnuts in Carolina Beach or Krispy Kreme anywhere. We did not visit the shop, but they were very good at the restaurant.
After eating we had a couple of more places to visit. One was the highest point in Lisbon. When we reached the top we could almost see 360 degrees of beauty. We took some amazing pictures. After that there is a famous arch with an outdoor mall. There were hundreds there. I would have loved to shop, but when you remember that whatever you buy you have to carry for 400 miles, it takes the joy out of buying, But I had fun looking anyway.
On the way home we stopped to buy some fruit and cheese for our dinner, and to take with us tomorrow when we start our walk. We will leave a lot earlier than 10:00 when the restaurants open, so that will be our morning food.
Tonight we went out to listen to some music and get an appetizer. We ended up getting goat cheese with fresh bread slices and a drink. The music was Fado. They explained it as “similar to opera” when we asked what Fado was. So if you want to hear what Fado is you can go to my facebook post about the music we have heard. It would have been nice—or not—to know the words. But we enjoy cultural things in a country. Just another experience along the way and some knowledge if anyone ever asked if we have heard of Fado. I’m sure that will happen somewhere along the way. Ha!
We are going to bed. The walk starts tomorrow. Can hardly wait!!!
Day 4—August 29–Lisbon to Alpriate –15 miles
I can’t even begin to tell you how horrible today was. In all my days of walking, nothing has been this bad. A few bad things happened along the way last year, but they all happened in the same day this year. I had told you that the yellow arrow was just outside the building where we stayed the last two nights. So we knew where to begin. First of all, cities are the most poorly marked areas on the Camino. The thing that saves you is that there are “Camino shells” implanted in most of the sidewalks. I took hundreds of pictures on the trip last year. Well, most Portuguese people in Lisbon have never even heard of the Camino—must less shells. So markings are scarce and most are knee level that can easily be hidden by cars. After walking at least an hour, we had only seen 3, and then we saw none for the next hour. So, Larry’s innermost direction kicked in and we started out on our own. There are railroad tracks, water, bridges, etc, on our map, so we began to look at landmarks instead of signs. We knew we were supposed to be walking along the river, we just didn’t know how close to the river. We knew at one point we were supposed to go under a bridge, so we began looking for a bridge. After about five miles, we began to want coffee and something to eat. It was about 9:30. Larry and I intermittent fast every day, so except for coffee, we do not eat until around 12. That is fine sitting and walking around the house, but not so well walking this much. We had no idea what town or district we were in, and when we would show people our map, they didn’t either. So, Larry just walks into a business and says, “Where can we get some coffee”? The man says take a left, go up to the next block, turn right and there is a café. So at least we wouldn’t be hungry while we searched for the trail. After eating a ham and cheese sandwich and coffee, we asked the café owner where we were. He took one look at our map and said, “You see that little mark on your map right there. That is the town square with directions to the Camino”. We are just amazed at how we are guided along on the exact path. If we had asked two blocks back or two blocks ahead, we would not have been directed to the yellow arrow. Oh my, we give all the credit to God. Now by this time we have walked two hours and have not seen anyone with a backpack. In a few minutes we saw a couple and a single man walking along with packs. What a welcoming sight. This too is very different on the Franciscan Camino last year where we would already have seen hundreds. No wonder nearly everyone starts the walk in Porto. But not us. Our slogan is GO BIG or GO HOME. That gets us into trouble sometimes.
Now we are on the way and feeling pretty good. We met one other man walking with a backpack, but otherwise we had it to ourselves. We stopped at a grassy area around noon to eat our lunch that we had bought the day before—peaches, bananas, grapes and walnuts. As we were sitting on the ground, a young lady with a backpack spotted us and asked if she could join us. She was 23, from Poland, had graduated college, worked a while and decided to
walk the Camino by herself. Her name was Marta. We connected and she decided to walk with us to our destination. We had a chance to share life and talked about finding purpose in whatever we do in life. She was aiming for a further town than us, but decided to stay with us in Alpriate. There is a small albergue there that only sleeps 9, and they say it is never full.
Now a 23 year old can keep up with a 71 year old that has long strides, but this short strided person got left behind. I tried my best to keep at least in view of them but I just couldn’t. In my effort to keep up I was putting undue stress on my calves. They were already sore from walking in Lisbon for two days, but with this added stress of 15 miles, the muscles in my calves began to grab and it was very painful. I was literally walking baby steps and I could see that I was holding everyone back. I begged Larry to go ahead to the albergue, get signed in, and come back and find me. Of course, he refused. He just kept saying, “We only have a few miles, we only have a few miles.” I kept trudging along at a snail’s pace until I found a park bench to sit on. The problem with that is, my muscles practically froze up and I could hardly get off the bench. If it had not been so painful, it would have been funny. I also had to use the bathroom. I crept over to a restaurant, took off my pack and I could hardly lower myself to the commode. I just kept thinking—we should have trained more. We mentally and somewhat physically trained for two years for the last walk, but decided on this one about 5 weeks ago. But it is too late now for training.
We finally reached our destination after 10 hours. We calculate our hours each day by saying we can cover two miles an hour. This includes everything—stopping to eat, rest, fellowship with fellow pilgrims and using the bathroom. So this was 15 miles, so we should have made it in 7.5 hours. Today it took 10 hours. That is probably not all that unusual the first day out. But I know a lot of it was getting lost and my calf cramping. But we made it!!
We found the albergue and it was one of the cleanest I have ever seen. We were soon to find out why. It was run by the albergue Bossman. When we walked in he said, “Pull your shoes off and put them under the chair. You cannot take your backpack to your room, you must get what you need and put it in the small plastic bin. He began with Marta and took her upstairs to her bed. She came back down, filled her tray with necessities and went back up. Then he
looked at me and Larry and said that we could sleep in the living quarters down stairs. It looked like two huge daybeds, right by the front door. I’m thinking this is really strange and then I am overjoyed because he says we can have our backpacks with us. So he gave us our disposable sheets and pillowcases. I put on my sheet and laid my backpack on the foot of the bed to get out my clean clothes to put on after my shower. He quickly came over and told me I could not put my backpack on the bed, it must remain on the floor. Does this guy realize how bad I am hurting? Does he realize how bad I want to tell him where he can put my backpack and any others he wants to add to the collection? I gently remove my backpack and smile. Then he starts on Larry. While Larry is making his bed, he puts his pillow over on the edge of my bed. He comes over and says, Is this your pillow? Larry said yes, so he hands it to him—not waiting until Larry gets the sheet on. Boy it is going to be fun doing all of this in front of him and anyone else who walks in the door.
I go get my shower and dress for dinner. Larry asked him where we could eat and he gave us the name of two diners. He told us which one he preferred. He said, I’ll see you up there later. (Oh boy!!). He was right, though, about the food and the price. We had steak, french fries, salad, basket of bread, plate of olives (standard in Portugal and Spain), drinks (water or wine), dessert and after dinner coffee for—-drumroll—$7.00—no
tax and no tip—$14.00. Larry paid $15.00 and you would have thought the dollar tip was $100 by her reaction. The don’t even know what tipping is all about. In the meantime the Albergue Bossman walks in.
They have great internet, so I immediately began to post last night’s blog and work on writing this one. The Albergue Bossman walks over and says that it is time to go, that he will wait outside the albergue until we get there. I tell Larry that I am finishing the blog and will be there later. I realize that is not going to happen, so I just pack up my computer and head to the albergue. Once in, I sit down on my bed and start typing. The Nazi walks over and asks Larry what I am doing. Larry explains the blog and he promptly tells me I have to quit typing because he is turning out the lights. Once again, I close it down and crawl in bed. We have a night light at the front door, so it is enough light for me to rub down my aching calves and feet with essential oil—Pain Away mixed
with coconut oil. I also get out my magnesium/aloe gel and take a double dose of curcumin. I know it all works normally, but we will see. This is not normal pain. I went to sleep pretty quick, but only slept 4 hours before having to use the bathroom. As soon as I got back in bed, I pulled out the computer and stated typing the blog. I’m sitting here terrified that he is going to come around the corner and tell me to put up my laptop—yes he is sleeping about 10 feet from the living room. But I made it without being fussed at. So, I am going back to bed at 1:00 and try to finish out the night. Tomorrow is a new day. We will see how the calves and feet survived the night.
Day 5 August 30 Alpriate to Alverca 6 miles
This morning started about 6:30. Remember we are sleeping in the living room, and everyone has to come down to get into their pack. But it does not bother us. It is like an alarm clock without having to set an alarm. We are in no hurry today. We have decided to finish the stage from yesterday—which is about five miles. This will give my calves time to heal a little more before we have to do the 20 mile days. Larry gave me a lesson in anatomy and physiology explaining my calf pain. The muscles were contracting but not releasing. He said this happened to him every year in high school when basketball season started, but no one complained because they wanted to play. The muscles worked so hard that they kind of “locked up.” All I knew was that every step I took the last hour of the walk, it felt like someone was hitting me with a stick on the back of the calf. I’ve never felt this before, and was a little worried that it would stay that way. Larry assured me that it would not. They were much better after my “potions” and a good night’s sleep. At least they felt good while I was lying in bed. When I started to get up it was very painful and stiff. But after stretching and walking around they felt much better.
So we dressed and went back to the café we ate at last night, to get some breakfast. They have super high speed internet, so we will be able to finish the blog, post it, and still have time for a leisurely breakfast. For breakfast we had a huge ham and cheese sandwich with coffee, which was delicious, and as we were leaving Larry bought a bottle of water—I need the plastic bottle for something else–, and 2 small meat pies for a snack along the way. All of this was $7.50. Unbelievable!!
I should list Larry’s miles longer than mine. We were walking down the road holding hands. All of a sudden Larry said, “Where are your poles”? I had left them in the restaurant. He said it hit him when he realized that we were holding hands. We can’t hold hands, because I carry poles. So, he walked back—maybe half a mile and back. So we can add a mile to his walking today.
We had some unusual scenery today. Most of the walking was across a wide
opened field, a wooden boardwalk and a path with cane on both sides—the kind you make fishing poles—bamboo? Anyway it was interesting. Just beyond the path was a creek coming from the river and there were huge fish swimming. If only I had my rod and reel. I really just wanted to jump in the water, I was so hot. We stopped at a little café to study the map and get something to drink. Larry got coffee and I got a bottle of apple juice and it was a whopping $1.45. That would have been at least $5:00 at home.
It wasn’t long before we reached Alverca and time to look for the alburge. There was only one listed in our book and it was a donitiva—donation only. It is suggested that you donate at least $5. That is a budget booster. It is off the camino path, so we have to search for it by address. Since we do not know streets and their names, we have to find someone who speaks English and can read our map. I love to be in a foreign country with a man. At home Larry will do almost anything before he will stop and ask for directions. I’ve heard other wives say this too. Well over here Larry has to turn in his “man card” and humbly ask for directions and it is quite refreshing!!
We finally find the albergue after going through about three people only to learn that we would not be able to stay there. The reason it is a donation only place is because it is run by a school. School is not in session right now, so they have no one to run it. It’s a pity that our book did not explain that. So Larry shows them another listing from our book. A very nice lady phones the place and they told her that they didn’t take guests anymore, but the “book” still had their name in it. Now we are on to the last suggestion. She calls that number for us and yes, they have a room. They charge by the person and not the room so for one it is $20 and two it is $40. It’s not the nicest I have ever seen, but it is private with our own bathroom and that is always a plus. With all the cheap food, we are still way under budget of $91 Euros a day.
We immediately took a shower and just chilled until supper time. We also wash a few clothes each day, much more than we did last time. It is much hotter here than last year. For one thing the climate is a little different, but another thing is that we came three weeks earlier than we did last year, so it has not begun to cool down yet. So when we get to our room, sometimes our shirts are wet with sweat. That means only one wearing—so we have to wash. This works out fine. We just put our clothes in the shower with us. They are practically washed when we get through bathing. Add a little more soap, swish and squeeze and they are done. We just hang them up outside—most places have an area for laundry, but like tonight, which is a hostel and not an albergue, we just hang them in our room and they will be dry by in the morning.
It’s time to head to dinner. The owner of the hostel also runs a restaurant. I’m not sure we can handle the price tonight. I noticed it is $8.00 instead of $7.00, and I’m not sure if we get dessert. I asked someone who spoke English to interpret it for me and his answer was soup and fish, cow, pig or mixed grill. Kept listening for dessert, drink and after dinner coffee, but I’m not sure because there were additional words there that he didn’t have an explanation for. So, we will see.
Well, they were not to be outdone. The only difference was the $1:00 more. We had green soup(collards, smoked sausage and pureed white beans), Larry had grilled salmon, I had grilled perch, salad, roasted potatoes, dessert, and coffee. All served with wine or water. Oh my was it delicious!!
Now to head to bed and enjoy our private room. We are not disappointed about the albergue!!!! If you know what I mean!!!
Day 6 August 31—Alverca to Vila Franca de Xira 7 miles
Today we actually set an alarm. Not that we had to get an early start, but we wanted to beat the heat. It is much hotter than we are used to walking, but it is not unbearable because of the constant breeze. We are only going about 7 miles today. That ends a stage, so we will start a new stage tomorrow. We have done half stages for the first couple of days to let my calves calm down. They are good to go. I could have walked a lot farther today, but not as far as we would have had to go to find a place to sleep. Tomorrow it is 13 miles with no places to sleep during the 13. The doctor (Larry) said that we
needed one more day to be sure I am ready, that training time was over after today. We really have learned to listen to our bodies to make decisions. Now we don’t totally listen to them because some mornings they say STAY IN BED!!!
So we got started around 7:00 and headed to McDonald’s to get a cup of coffee. That did not happen. We forgot, we are in a country that does not function like the US. McDonalds did not open until 8:00. We said, well we will go to Lidl’s grocery and get some fruit. That did not happen, it doesn’t open until 8:30. I can’t even imagine this. So we just walked until we found a coffee shop and had coffee and a couple of pastries for a whole $2.50. I have a hard time believing that too.
The walk today was entirely in a city beside the river again. In fact, it was mostly on a path that was built for joggers, bicyclist and exercise buffs. They had an outdoor gym to get your exercise in for the day. There were all ages, from those in strollers, and those learning to ride bikes, up until old folks like us. Seemed like a lot of great family time.
As we were walking along enjoying the flowers, I brushed up against the flowers and a wasp nest. Of course I got stung. This is actually the 4th time this year. They love me for some reason. Now at home I run straight for the apple cider vinegar and it stops the sting immediately. It may swell a little but that’s ok. I can live with that. I use to buy Benedryl, but quit using that al long time ago. So what do I have in my backpack that could stop a sting? I got out my all purpose baking soda. At is great for toothpaste, deodorant, taking out stains as well as indigestion. I never go anywhere without it—even at home. Now I had never tried this before so I put baking soda on it. It felt better immediately but the entire sting was not gone. Then I remembered that this morning when I walked under a lime tree I picked up a couple off the ground beside the road. Larry made a small hole in it with his knife and I put a little lime juice on top of the baking soda and Voila!!! No more stinging and in a little while, the swelling stopped. So glad I had started my health journey to try to never use chemicals to solve problems. Always choose the natural is my slogan. Now I have something else in my arsenal.
We got into the town and it was time to find a place to sleep. There are no algergues here, so hostels are our only choice. We went for the rooms with 4 beds (2 bunk beds). This is the first time we have slept with anyone this whole trip. The hostel is very nice and clean. We are staying here for $51 and this includes dinner, breakfast and lunch. Great shot for the budget today. We are trying to save as much as possible because we would like to go to Italy before we come home. You can fly there for $100. Why not do it when we are so close. We are spending more than normal because until we get to Porto, the cities are not as “pilgrim” friendly. There are very few places to stay, so they can pretty much charge what they want—you gotta sleep. Don’t know how long it will last, but right now we are close to $100 under budget and that will pay for 1 plane ticket. The game is getting exciting
After eating our lunch of fresh fruit in an outdoor market, we headed to the room to shower and rest a while before dinner. Can’t wait to see what we get at the perigrino meal for $7.50. I know we get soup, main dish and dessert. We’ve never had bad food before on the Camino, so I know it will be good.
Tonight we had a date night. Great music and a wonderful meal of soup, roasted beef, mashed potatoes, bread, olives and dessert—some type of pudding. It was very, very delicious. Afterwards we went back to the hostel to prepare for bed and tomorrow. Larry said it was just 13 miles tomorrow, so it won’t be too hard, but we would like to get a jump on the sun. This weather is a little strange. Very, very hot in the daytime, but cool enough to need jackets at night. We love it.
Just a little disappointed that I will not get to see a real bull fight. I think that is very cruel, but here they do not kill the bull, so I wanted to see one. There is on tomorrow, but it is not in this town. They do have “running of the bulls” here twice a year. Don’t want to experience that.
Portuguese Camino Day 7 September 1 Villa Franca to Azambuja—12 miles
We left the hostel at 7:30. We should have left earlier because they are having a heat wave. Record breaking temperatures—in the 90’s and tomorrow it is supposed to be in the 100’s.But breakfast was served at 7:00 and was free, so we stayed. It was so much food and their breads are so huge, that we had enough leftovers for lunch also. We ran out of water today, but luckily we were not far from Azambuja, our destination. We are going to have to buy some bottled water tomorrow to go along with our thermoses to fight the heat.
It was all quite boring today. We walked most all day on pavement, and
some on gravel. It was along the river, but the same scenery for miles. We clicked off the miles this morning. We were averaging over 3 miles an hour, because there was no where to stop and very, very few people to talk to. We did see tomato harvesting inaction. Amazing how they strip the fields of tomatoes, vines and all and end up with a diesel truck full of beautiful red ripe tomatoes. How they can load that many and not squash them is unbelievable. They are stacked 10 feet high. What about the ones on the bottom? Some feel off the truck, so we grabbed one for lunch.
We could have been faster than three miles an hour, had it not been so hot. It is actually very cool in the morning, but very shortly we were taking off shirts and zipping off the bottom of our pants. We also worked in a short rest along the way– on the ground. It is amazing the conditions on which you can rest when you are tired. We slowed down after that, but still reached our destination by 2:00.
The albergue did not open until 3:00, so we had to wait on the street outside. We got to meet all the others waiting. It only held 12, and at the time we got there, there were already 8 people waiting. They said not to worry, there was a lady that provided for overflow should others come. It was only $6.00. Great for the budget, especially since we have only spent $.60 today. Since there were only 6 bunk beds, and everyone wants a bottom bunk, I was afraid that I would be climbing up and down all night. But the proprietor of the albergue suggested that the younger and taller people take top bunks. She said of course it is first come, first served. I kept watching and everyone was getting a bottom bunk. I held my breath, but when it was our turn to go in, there was a complete bunk bed empty. That is the way we like it—Larry on top and me on the bottom. That way he can step on my bed when he gets up and down and doesn’t have to disturb whoever is below him. His legs are long and he can reach down with his legs and they are level with the bed. Me I just hang there and drop. It is not a pretty picture.
We showered and washed out our garments for today. Because of the hot weather we are washing more than usual. They accommodate this with wash sinks and a place to hang clothes. There is no trouble with them
drying by morning. Most everyone in Portugal and Spain operate this way. There is almost no washers and dryers in this area. Reminds me of the old days when we hung everything on the line. I love this simple life.
We headed to a café for dinner. Being so hot, we do not want much. We
ordered soup, salad and water. It was so good. The soup was carrot with a few collards sprinkled in. This area of the world has the corner on soup. Larry and I went home last year and made all different kind of soups all year long. They are not afraid to try different combinations. And no matter what they combine, it is delicious.
After dinner we went to the supermarket to get some fruit for tomorrow. They tell us that there is no where to eat along the way, and after 16 miles there is literally nothing along the way—no food, no water, and no place to sleep. So we are not going but ten of the twenty miles. They are really warning us about the heat also. They say there is a farmhouse that is a private hostel about 10 miles out, so we plan to stay there. It is supposed to be a little pricy, but Larry said it is probably the best money we will spend on the trip. We suffered today and was sure not looking forward to a longer walk tomorrow. So halving it and getting an earlier start will help with the heat. Larry said we are going to leave at six, so we will try to turn in earlier tonight.
Day 8 September 2 Azambuja to Porto-de-Muge 12 miles
Just to finish up from last night, I just wanted to mention a very special person who stayed in the albergue with us. His name is Ken and he is from Arizona. He is a very likable person, turning 70 this year and has walked several Caminos. He walked the Franciscan in 2016, a couple of years before did in 2018, so we had a lot of stories to share and even stayed in some of the same places. This is what makes walking the Camino so special. You build friendships and relationships that can last a lifetime. But the best part is actually sharing real life with people, whether it is for one day or maybe several days or maybe a week. And then you might not see them again for several days, weeks or maybe never again. But the memories are forever etched in your mind, and you may luck up and get connected on facebook where the memories go on into their future life and even with other family members. So, bye, Ken, if you are reading this and I hope to see you again in the next few weeks.
The albergue we stayed in last night was very adequate and only cost $6.00
each. The only negative is I did not sleep very well. We had a group of three ladies who came in about bedtime and they took forever to get settled. Lights should have been out at least an hour or two earlier. Most albergues are pretty strict about lights out at night and lights on in the morning. This is to benefit everyone so you can get adequate rest. I finally got up and started for the lights
and she finally crawled into bed when I turned them off. I think I was about the only one still awake. I know others around me had been asleep for hours. And if that was not bad enough, people started getting up at 4 o’clock. We had been so warned about the heat, that a few wanted to get an early start because they were going the entire 20 miles. And when 3 or 4 people start squishing plastic bags, you might as well give it up, so Larry and I got up.
Our alarm was set for 5:30 (still dark), but there was no way we were going back to sleep. So I had about 4 hours sleep. In my studying of the importance of health/sleep, they encourage no one to drive who has only had 4 hours of sleep. Your reactions are equivalent to someone drinking alcohol. And the statistics are very high on wrecks because by sleep deprivation. I didn’t get much sleep the night before either because I told Kristi (our cousin) to
keep me posted on the Auburn/Oregon football score that was going on all night Saturday night (5 hour difference). This was my fault and so worth it! But I really needed a good night’s sleep last night.
We left the albegue at 5:45 in the dark. We have a great little flashlight, but it is still hard to walk by flashlight on a gravel road. We walked over an hour before the sun came up. With my lack of sleep and the heat, I was not at all fresh for walking, so we only made it 11 miles instead of the 20 where our stage ends.
We found a great place to stay tonight. We love these types of accommodations because we get to experience the culture of the country.
Rainer the chef
This place is run by Paula who owns the property. She has guest rooms in her house and then she has another building with just beds. We were told about her place last night at our albergue. When we asked if we needed to make reservations, they said no—that there was plenty of space. Well, “space” did not distinguish rooms from beds, so when we got here all they had left was beds. So, so much for reservations. We slept in a separate building that was an old dairy barn that had been renovated somewhat. Larry and I have worked in a dairy before, so we recognized the little trough where the poop falls while cows are being milked. This makes it easier for hose it out at the end of each shift of cows. Don’t get me wrong, it was not anything close to being a dairy barn now. It was very clean and nice.
When we arrived, we were served fresh squeezed orange juice out on the big porch on the front of the house, while we waited for out beds to get ready. We were there a few hours early. We then moved to the front yard and reclined on a chair and I began the blog. As we were resting, Paula said that our beds were ready and she would show us our room and the shower area. She said as soon as we showered to bring her our dirty clothes and she would wash them all for free.
At 7:30 we were served our meal. It was by far this best meal so far on the Camino. It was prepared by Rainer, a fellow pilgrim from Germany who decided to stay for three weeks and volunteer his culinary skills. He was not a cook, but he loved cooking—and we could tell. We had roast pork, Santiago tomatoes (a recipe of his own that I will certainly make when I get home) , served with rice and salad. Of course, we had fresh bread and for dessert chocolate mousse (that Paula made). She just kept filling our plates with all the left overs until we were stuffed. She said every meal is prepared
fresh every day so she did not like leftovers. This was all served by donation only. We were happy to donate.
We felt so blessed to share all of this with six other pilgrims. We are beginning to make connections with people from Australia, Germany, and Poland. They have great stories to share. We are finding that most everyone has walked the Franciscan Camino that we walked last year, so we already have that in common. Now to check out the beds in the milking room.
Day 9 September 3 Day Porto de Muse to Santarem 10 miles
We had a great night’s sleep, the best I’ve had the whole trip– except the first day when we arrived after no sleep for 30 hours when I slept 12 straight hours. The concrete walls and building was naturally cool, and there was no noise from other pilgrims. We shared the dairy with one other man, David, but there was a large wall between us, so that was not a problem.
At six we were served breakfast. We had coffee ( all we wanted), juice, soft boiled egg, toast and jam. We also had large rolls of bread to make us two sandwiches each to take on our walk today. There are no stops of any kind for the next eight miles. It is just farmland, so she makes sure we do not get hungry. And all of this is included in the $40—$20 each.
We thought today would be extremely boring since we knew there were no
stops along the way. We were actually dreading that part and the heat. We cannot wait until it cools down. You just can’t keep up a decent pace when it is hot. But we found the walk not boring at all. There were fields of tomatoes, cabbage, bell peppers and grapes. The thing that made this interesting is that they were harvesting a lot of it and we got to see the operation. We had seen the tomatoes being harvested and we saw how the trucks pull up the whole tomato plants and separate the plants from the tomatoes. Last year we had
seen the workers cut off clusters of grapes, but this year the machine pulled the grapes off the clusters while on the vines and all that was left was the stem where each individual grape was had been attached to the cluster.
So as we are going along, we pick some grapes, tomatoes, and huge sweet yellow bell peppers. We also find figs and peaches, so our lunch is shaping up—with the sandwiches that Paula let up make. It will be nice to put fresh tomatoes and peppers on our cheese sandwich.
We do not actually stop for lunch. We rested a few short times just along the
road. There was not one man-made stopping place on the whole eight miles.
It was all on a very dusty road. So we just saved our lunch until we arrived at our destination. The destination was an albergue in Santanrem but when we arrived they would not rent us a room. They said they would not know if they were going to offer any rooms until 4:00, because they were having plumbing problems. Larry and I did not want to wait that long to get a place to sleep because it was getting hotter by the minute. It is supposed to reach 100 degrees sometime today, so we wanted to be in a room during this time. I hated this because the room was supposed to be $7.50 each and now we were going to have to pay $20 each. But that did include breakfast and/or a lunch to take with us. We chose the lunch because breakfast is not served until 8 AM and we want to be gone before that time to beat the heat.
Our room was not going to be ready until 3:00, so we sat at the tables in the reception area and ate the lunch Paula had sent, while waiting for the beds to get made. Larry decided to go look for an ATM to get a little cash while I did the blog. The minute he left, I just closed my eyes for a few seconds and I was fast asleep. The next thing I knew was the lady working the desk tapping my shoulder to tell me the room was ready. I took my things up and Larry was still not back. There is only one ATM machine that will take our credit card, Santander, so sometimes they are difficult to find. After I got to the room, I worked some more on the blog until Larry arrived and we took a real nap in the bed. We have never been this tired and have never walked in this kind of heat. I would never encourage anyone to come this time of year. We can’t wait to get to cooler temperatures. It is supposed to be over 100 tomorrow, so we once again will
not go the whole stage.
After a nap we went to find food. While on the way, we met David and Freda from the night before. They had been out sightseeing and were on their way to find dinner. We talked a few minutes and moved on to find food. While sitting in the outside courtyard of the restaurant—out walks Ken, our friend from two nights ago. This is just the joy of the Camino. You keep crossing paths with the ones you have learned to love.
After dinner we went sightseeing to an area called Portas Do Sol. It is a beautiful view of the whole area. It gave us an idea of the mountain we climbed to get to this area, the last mile. It was tough in this heat. We were
so ready to get to a room. It also let us view where we will be walking in the morning. Looks like a lot more farmland, but also some towns to stop in to get a snack and something to drink and a place to eat our lunch provided by the hostel
So, now to go see if we can get some rest before tomorrow.
Day 10 September 4 Santarem to Golega-8 miles
We left this morning at 6:30 after the sun came up. We were trying to beat the heat. We passed a town pretty quickly, but there was nothing open, so there was no coffee for us right now. As we were walking we saw a lot of the same farms—tomatoes, grapes and this time red bell peppers. We picked up one tomato and I pepper to put on the sandwich that the hostel from last night had left beside our door during the night. Of course, we ate some grapes along the way and a fig or two. But this somehow does not give you the burst that coffee gives you.
It got hot pretty quick and it slowed us down. I can’t even describe the heat here. Larry got a Sim card for his phone, so he gets local alerts. His phone kept beeping to alert us to the danger of the heat. We have been warned all week about walking in this heat. A lot of pilgrims we have met have been taking trains to the next towns looking for cooler weather. We were pushing hard to get to the next village to get some rest and eat our lunch and make some decisions about travel. When we got to the next town, there was no place to stay. This is just so different from last year. There were places to stay everywhere. It was eight miles to the next town and there was no way we could walk eight miles in this heat. It was 100+ degrees. We realized that at the rate we were going that it would take longer to walk 400 miles than it did to walk 500 last year. Something has to change.
As we were sitting in the Petiscos café in Vale de Figueira eating our lunch,
there was a beautiful young girl sitting at a table next to us. We asked if she spoke English and she said, “Yes, a little”. Her name was Ines. Larry asked her if there was a train station in town and if it went to our next stop. She said yes, but we would have to change trains to get to where we wanted to go. She said it was a little complicated, so she engaged a few others in the
discussion. After a few minutes she said that she and her friend would take us to the next town—about 10 miles away. Larry said fine, how much would it cost? She said, “Nothing”. Larry argued with her a little but it was
obvious she was not going to take any money. She found her friend and he said he needed to change clothes and would be by later. We had time to get another cup of coffee and a sweet snack before he got back. While we were waiting, we met the owner of the café, Sandra, Ines’ friend. He other friend returned a little later and we climbed into his big SUV and off we went. It was about 10 miles away and took about us about fifteen minutes. When we arrived, he let us out at the cathedral in the center of town. We once again tried to pay to no avail. From there we had to find a hostel.
On the ride to Golega I told Ines that she should open a hostel for pilgrims. And maybe not a hostel but maybe just a house with a room or two for guests. We would have stayed with her tonight. She said she did not have a house and could not afford one. She would make a great owner—with such a great personality and a desire to help people. She said a three-bedroom house would cost $50 to $80 thousand. That seems small to us, and I know money is relative to the situation, but I wish we had the money to just give her. Some people just get to your heart. This whole country has gotten to my heart. We heard that minimum wage is $3 and hour and a school teacher makes $900 a month after taxes.
After we got in Golega, we had to find a place to stay. Our guide book warned us that the prices here were high and that we could pay up to $80
depending on demand. We had two places in mind to try. They were more than we were use to paying, but you do what you have to do. The first place we stopped was Quartos do Lagar. They showed us a room with a kitchen, bedroom and nice bath with marble floors. And she quoted us $25. We were shocked. That was less than the book quoted. We were more than pleased.
We took a shower and washed our clothes in the kitchen sink. It was so hot
that they were practically dry within 30 minutes, except for right around the waistbands of our pants. The heat is great for drying my hair!! After we washed our clothes, we took a short nap and then went outside on our porch and ate a snack of almonds, and the huge apple we got a few weeks ago. We had water with a fresh lemon that we got from off the ground until a huge lemon tree. It was delicious.
It got too hot outside so we came in to finish the blog and then go find dinner. We walked back into town to try to find something to eat and did some sightseeing. We found out that they did not serve dinner until 7 o’clock, so we found a cafeteria that served sandwiches. Not really what we wanted, but we did not want to be out that late. It is 5:30 at this time, but the sun is still high in the sky, like it would be around 2-3 at home. Larry says it has something to do with the position of the equator. All I know is that it is
extremely hot this late in the afternoon.
So we are turning in early tonight so we can get a good start in the cool in the morning.
Day 11 Sept. 5 Golega to Tomar —
We got up this morning at 6:00 and did something different. We headed to the train station. Yes, we turned in our “purist” card. We walked 500 miles across Spain last year with no transportation, no shipping of back packs and no reservations. When you do it “down and dirty” they label you purist. So, we are struggling in more ways than one on this trip. It is physically exhausting for one thing because of the heat. We can only get in around 4-5 hours a day before the sun just zaps us of our energy. This means that we cannot cover a whole stage in a day and we have to find lodging. The problem is that there is very little lodging along
the way. You read yesterday’s blog about how we were transported by car to the next hostel. Well the same thing was going to happen today—no lodging at the place we would have had to stop—so we headed for the train. So now we are experiencing a kind of emotional sadness at having to somewhat do the Camino the modern way. It is an attitude adjustment that we are going to have to get over and move on. We talked to one lady who is facing the same struggles. She too did the “purist thing” on the Franciscan Camino three years ago. She said she came to grips with the fact that the Camino always teaches lesson’s on life and her lesson this year is flexibility. So, we, like her, are moving on and enjoying Portugal.
We did however get in a walk. The train station was two miles away. And believe it or not there was a coffee shop on the way so we could at least get a burst of caffeine. That was different, too. Someone had told us that each day it would become like the Camino we experienced last year, so we are looking forward to that. We arrived at the train station about 45 minutes early and got our tickets to Tomar. We arrived in Tomar around 10:30. It was 102 degrees.
We went straight to a hostel to secure a room. We knew it was too early to check in, but maybe they would at least let us leave our packs. They did, so we went searching for some lunch. Larry and I were just ready for a good hamburger. We found a place that made them so that is what we ordered, with homemade chips. Can’t say that it was as good as a good ole American burger, but it was better than ham and cheese—which we get most of the time. They always advertise Angus beef, which is good, but it seems to have a slightly different texture. This may be all right, I don’t eat Angus beef that often.
After we ate, we went to the bus station to see if it’s route would be able to
get us halfway if we could not make it all the way tomorrow. The train stops here and heads back the other direction, so that is not an option. We decided to take the bus on to the next town. This will give us two days of rest and put us in a position to have more flexibility in lodging. And just maybe some cooler weather.
After this, we went back to the hostel to get settled in. It is a nice hostel—a little pricy, but very nice. We have to pay $15 each, but it does include breakfast. We are in a room with 9 beds. The beds are very comfortable. How do we know? We took about a two-hour nap to let the heat pass. While we were checking in, guess who walked in—Marta. Remember her from the first day we walked? She was the 23 year old that walked with us to the first albergue. This is the beauty of the Camino—seeing friends from the past. That was day 3, I think and here it is day 11 and we are seeing her again.
After our nap, we went to do a little sightseeing. This town has a rich history and it is shown in all the historical buildings and cathedral. The castle was amazing. I can’t even imagine the man hours and materials that went into building such a structure. The views from the top were breathtaking. Before we left we met David and Freda, the couple we stayed with at the dairy barn house. They were on their way to visit the city. It was a happy reunion and we traded travel stories.
After our sightseeing, we went back to the hostel and showered and dressed for dinner. There is a little Italian restaurant just down the street from our hostel. I had vegetarian spaghetti with fresh peppers, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes. Larry had the spaghetti with meat sauce. This, a salad and bread was a meal!!! It was amazingly delicious.
After dinner it was time to head for the hostel to finish the blog and head
for bed. We do not have to get up real early tomorrow since we are catching the bus at 10:30. They do serve breakfast, though, and we do not want to miss that.
We are beginning to connect with people from America. We met a very nice couple tonight from Nebraska. She is in sales, so they live in an RV and travel for job. He is retired and just hikes all over the world. They are here for a couple of months to travel various Caminos. They are experiencing the same disappointment that we are, about the heat. She took a train today also, while her husband walked. They, like us, walked the Franciscan Camino as purist, so we are feeling each other’s pain. They are staying here for two nights, so we may or may not see them again. That is the Camino life.
Day 12 September 6, Tomar to Alvaiazere 20.6 miles
It has been a little hard writing the blog these last couple of days and not tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But you need to know the good, the bad and the ugly. Everything, overall is wonderful, great, awesome. Larry and I often just say to each other—do you realize what we are able to enjoy and experience that very few people get to experience in their lifetime? Then we go into the goodness of God and his great provisions. So you don’t want to be getting on a blog and talk about the bad. It seems almost like a slap in God’s face. So we hold back. To give a little better picture, I’ll tell this story. A week or two before we left, we were talking to Brad and Keasha (son and daughter-in-law), about our last trip and some of the things we went through. Keasha ( who is a very black/ white, truth/lie, type person) said, “Well, that is not what the blog said”. We laughed and said well, you don’t tell much of the bad. One problem with that is that Larry is fact
oriented, and not feelings oriented, and he has been writing the blog. So everything is very sterile. I, on the other hand am more feelings oriented, but I am also very protective of our problems. I think that comes from being in the ministry where the preacher and his family have to be viewed as “perfect”, or people will tear you to pieces if they see your flaws. Trust me, we are far from perfect. We are human and face the same problems everyone else faces. We just have God to help us through them. So, I am writing this time to try to give a good balance of what is happening.
I have expressed our disappointment of the heat and having to take public transportation, but I am also dealing with another issue. One reason we have been walking so slow is that my hip is in pain. I can feel every step on my right hip/leg and knee. Once I get going, I can walk at a steady pace with a little pain, but when I stop, I can hardly get going again until I get it stretched out and in a rhythm. This would normally not be a lot of problem because if the pain got too bad, we could just stop for the night. But here, the only places to sleep are at half stages or whole stages. Thus, the transportation to the end of the stages. I feel bad for Larry because he is having to walk slow for me, when, if the truth be told he would have no problem getting to the end of the stage. That’s the love of a husband. I say that because we have met two wonderful couples who are facing the same issue with heat and blisters. The husbands are holding back. But they solve the problem differently. They walk until she can’t walk anymore and the she takes transportation and the husband walks on and meets her at the hostel. I just can’t get Larry to leave me. This is not either good or bad, it is just the way he chooses to roll. There is something in me that is proud, but there is something in me that says—I hate for him to miss some of the sights. Oh well, that is the way of the Camino. We all have our own Caminos to experience, and they really should not all be the same for everyone.
This morning I slept in until 7:00. Larry had gotten up earlier and went to
breakfast. To my wonderful surprise my hip was not in pain anymore. I was shouting hallelujah!! It was still sore and I can feel a little discomfort in my knee, but I am good to go physically—we will see about the heat. We did not have to get on the bus until 10:30, so we had time to be lazy. We went to the breakfast that was provided by the hostel. We were so looking forward to a pot of coffee that we could pour in a big cup and then another. But—guess what— the glass pot had a crack in it! Larry got out one cup before he realized that it was running all over the counter. So he had a cup and I had to have juice. Breakfast actually meant cereal and toast. I had the cereal and Larry had the toast. After that we had some great fellowship with Gerald, our new friend from Nebraska. We have enjoyed he and Christina’s company in this albergue, but may or may not see them again because they are staying two nights. Christina is dealing with blisters, so she is giving her feet a rest. We love sharing “couples” stories. On the Camino they are strikingly the same. I hope we see them again.
We finished packing up and headed to the bus, where we met Sue, wife of Lee, who walked the path this morning. Sue will meet him in a town just short of the end of the stage and they will hook up for the night. The bus left at 10:30 and arrived in Alvaiazere at about 11:30. A distance that would have taken us at least 10 hours. When we arrive in Alvaiazere, to our welcome surprise, it was only 79 degrees. The temperature was expected to be 102 degrees in Tomar where we left this morning. This all says oned thing, we are ready to walk. No hip pain and cooler temperature!! We are happy. This is what we came to do!!
When we arrived, we got an albergue. That is what they call it, but it is
really a hostel. We have our own room. Of course we always share a bathroom with the other guests. That is never really a problem. After we checked in ,we went straight to a grocery store to get some fruit. We bought a small watermelon, an apple, plum, peach, grapes and some cheese. We ate half the watermelon for lunch and the fruit and cheese will be saved for the walk tomorrow. We went back to the alberge and ate our watermelon, made our beds and took a little rest while I am writing the blog. On the way back from the store we got a message from Brad saying that Dorian, the hurricane, is basically staying off the coast of North Carolina. That is good news. I worry a little about Cecil (my dog). I know Pauline takes good care of him, but I like to know that some storm won’t swoop him up while I am gone. I love him so much.
After a short rest, Carlos, the proprietor, came to take our money and stamp our credentials. This was a very unique experience that I will post of FB. He made almost a ceremony out of it. Great experience. We then left the albergue to do a little sightseeing and find a place for dinner. It was a great time to check out my hip that seemed fine when I got out of bed and walked to the bus station. It is still fine. What a relief. This is a very small town, so not really much to see that is different than we have seen over and over. We did find a fish pond with beautiful fish. After walking for a while, we went to the restaurant where we will eat at 7:00 and just sat down and worked on pictures and the blog. It is the only restaurant in town and seems as though it is cafeteria style. It will be interesting to pick out food that we do not recognize. So glad that we are not picky and will try anything.
Had dinner. It was different. One dish was a combination of black-eyed peas, some kind of greens and something chopped up and beige in color. We also had rice, baked chicken and bread. It was $4 each.
After we ate, we went back to the room to prepare for tomorrow. We want to get a good night’s sleep because we are going to try for an entire stage and is 21 miles. But if not, there is lodging at 8, 14 and 16 miles. Now we are getting back to what we are used to. With the cooler temperatures we will see how far we can go. I hope the whole way—we will see. Our “purist” card has been buried and put to rest.
Day 13 September 7 Aalvaiazeren to Rabical 20.4 miles Total 141.7 miles
We got up this morning at 5:00 with high aspirations. It was very cool, so much so that I wore a light long sleeved shirt. This was good. We ate the breakfast for $2.50 each. It was coffee, cereal, bread, jelly and watermelon (from yesterday). They also provided bread, and ham and cheese to fix a sandwich for lunch. So this was really $5.00 for two meals. Don’t know what the day will bring, but we are right now $292.00 under budget. This will more than pay for our plane tickets to Italy. That is if we can keep it all. We have heard that the expenses get greater from Porto on—we will see.
We walked for a while in the dark, looking very closely for arrows. It was a little difficult at times, but we found them and stayed on the right track. Larry and I were singing hallelujah the whole morning because we are experiencing the Camino as we know it. Right out of town we walked straight up a mountain. The sights were so beautiful. It was also a day of fruit. We picked figs, blackberries, peaches, apples, pears, kiwi and lemons. We also saw oranges, but we could not reach the fruit on the tree. We also saw many limes, but we still had one from yesterday in Larry’s pack. He is the food carrier. He said he felt like a grocery cart.
Now seeing and eating the fruit is one thing (by the way we did not eat all of this—we saved some for tomorrow), but the real Camino experience is when the people come out of their yards and give you some. We also had plums. I didn’t mention picking them (which we did later), because we were given four beautiful plums by a resident. She was tickled that I wanted to
take her picture, and she loved how we made over how delicious they were. We ate one at her house and saved the other one for lunch. There were other houses that left figs out by the side of the road in a basket for us to eat. This is the real Camino experience. They love pilgrims and are there to make it an enjoyable experience for us.
We arrived in the first town where there was a café in Ansiao—8 miles away. It was a bakery/ café, but Larry decided to see if they
would fix him breakfast. We had already had breakfast, but breakfast to Larry is bacon and eggs. After much sign language they finally found a girl who knew a little English. She was using some sign language also and they decided on scrambled eggs and bacon. She knew the word bacon. So we got two plates of scrambled eggs, bacon, bread and coffee for $7.30. It was delicious! After that and the rest, we were ready to walk again.
While we were there, we began talking to a couple from England. She was a teacher, so we had a lot to discuss. I noticed he had on a shirt with a Northridge logo. I asked him if I could take a picture of it and send it to a
pastor friend of ours. The name of the church is Northridge and the church has a similar logo. He said to tell Pastor Dean that the picture was coming from Mary and Joseph. I looked at him kind of funny and he said, “No, really– my wife is Mary and I am Joseph.” What a great story. He said they had a lot of fun with those names. A pilgrim he had met earlier, ran up to him and said, “Quick, can I have a picture”? He said, sure, but what is the hurry? After he took the picture, he showed it to them. To their surprise, there was a donkey following them. He told them that he could not miss that!! How funny.
We walked on a few miles and ran into Mary and Joseph again at a gas station. We sat and talked about 45 minutes. We should have been walking, but that is what the Camino is all about. They were in no hurry because they were staying at the next town. We however, had a long way to go.
After a few hours, we stopped to rest and eat our sandwiches we fixed for lunch, along with the plum from the lady and the bananas we brought the day before. We had no idea that we were going to get so much fruit along the way, so we have plenty for tomorrow. From here on it is very tiring, especially for me. On the last five miles, I was really dragging. When this starts happening, Larry starts with his words of encouragement, which don’t always work. But it is funny. He will say things like—we just have a few trips around the lake to go. Or he might say, this is just one trip down to Goldie’s. Goldie was his grandmother who lived about a mile from his childhood town of Warrior. I am going down fast when he sees the town approaching and he is trying to encourage me with our accomplishment for the day, 20.4 miles, our longest so far. He said, “Think about it Dete, you just walked from Warrior to the middle of Birmingham. Aren’t you proud? I felt like I had walked to Montgomery—about 100 miles. I ached all over, but my feet is what really ached. I could not wait to sit.
When we entered the town, the first thing we saw was the albergue. We had heard there were at least three and the cheapest one was $10 each. Larry went in to check prices while I sat at the outdoor café. I had just got set down and a lady said, come and see. When I walked through the gate I saw a plunge pool, so I knew that would probably be too expensive. After she showed us all the facilities—-which were extremely nice, Larry asked how much and she said $10 each. I couldn’t believe it! She took us to a room and showed us a bunk bed. I was saying to her in English that Larry took the top and I took the bottom. She did not have a clue what I was saying and I think she thought I was complaining. She motioned for me to follow her. I did and she took us to a room upstairs where we could both have a bottom bunk, and there was no one else in the room. So unless some pilgrims come in late, we will have a private room. God is good.
We quickly showered and then went outside to wash our clothes that we
wore today. While there. Barbara, asked about our blog address. She knew about it from Marta. Remember her—the 23 year old we met the first day? Well, she now has a traveling companion and she does not have to be alone. Marta is from Poland and Barbara is from the Czech Republic.
Now it is time to rest and work on the blog. Right now we are feeling pretty good about our accomplishment. 20.4 miles in 10 hours. Still averaging only 2 miles an hour, but we climbed three mountains today and took a 45 minute break. So we feel like we are getting on track for the rest of the Camino.
The next stage is 21 miles. But if not, there is lodging at 8, 14 and 16 miles. Now we are getting back to what we are used to. With the cooler temperatures we will see how far we can go. I hope the whole way—we will see. Our “purist” card has been buried and put to rest.
Day 14 September 8 Rabacal to Coimbra 18.1 miles Total 158.7
This morning we left about 5:45 in the dark. The walk very easy for a while because the towns have very good street lighting until you are sure you are on the trail. However, this gets a little iffy once roads or dirt paths begin to intersect with the path you are on. So then the hunt begins. We have lights on our cell phones so that helps. So we are happy when the sun starts to give light before it actually rises, which in this case, was about 30-45 minutes. We notice, though, that there is a headlight following us, so that is a good sign. Either we are on the right track or someone is with us on the wrong track. Then we see who it is HELEN. That is great, but not comforting. We have seen her several times and she always tells us how she gets lost and has to backtrack!! But Helen is my rock star hero. She is 13 days older than me, from Australia, and has literally traveled the world. She has never been married and is a nurse. She said she could always get a job, so she would work long enough—three months to a year—to get me some travel money and then she would take off. I know she has visited every continent and most of the countries of the world. A lot of it was by walking, bicycling, bus and trains—and almost always alone. When she got to a country, she actually saw the county, not just fly in and fly out. She visited California, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon and a lot of the state parks in the US. We could have talked to her for hours and not been bored, but she did not like to walk at our pace, so she was soon gone. We have just seen her several times along the trail and in albergues. She always arrives two hours before we do and has done a stage a day with no transportation. She said she trains in a gym before her walks. She somehow works with a travel agent, because she said, “I have to call my travel agent to help me get some items shipped to Santiago, because I am carrying too much.” She passed us on by. We may or may not ever see her again. Because she does not always pick the same albergues we do. She likes the smaller, quieter ones, because she goes to bed very early. She said that she stayed in one, one night that she is convinced that it was a brothel. Finally, at 3AM she just got up and started walking. Of course, she said she had to backtrack at least 3 times. She probably walked 30 miles that day. But this little energizer bunny just keeps on keeping on.
There was no coffee or breakfast when we left, so we just walk to the first
café. After about 3-4 miles we find a picnic area and sit down to have a fruit and cheese snack. Helen sits with us, but she leaves before we finish. After this we walk another four miles before we find a café. Finally, a cup of coffee. They have no “food”, so we eat a pastry and a bag of peanuts with our coffee. It is four miles to the next stop, so we are off again. We are walking up several mountains today, so of course we are seeing beautiful sights. When we get to the next town, we again meet up with Mary and Joseph. Great conversation. They have their trip very well mapped out (with reservations I think), so they know exactly what they are going at all times. Not us. We
follow what my Hebrew imprinted ring says from Jeremiah 20:11—For you know the plans I have for you….. So God knows our plans, but we do not. We like it that way, because that makes for an adventure—and boy are we coming up on an adventure of a lifetime.
We walk three miles into a little town called Pelheira, thinking that this may be where we will stay for the night. It is about six miles short of the stage, but it is getting very, very hot and a lot of highway walking into the next town. We would rather do the highway walking in the dark when these is less scenery—so that is the plan. So when we get there, there is a fork in the road with no indication as to where the next café is, so we see a young man about to get into a van. We asked if he spoke English, and he said, “Yes, but not perfectly”. Not perfectly is fine with us. We can fill in the words!! So we asked him where there was a café. He said about one kilometer (6 tenths of a mile to us), and he would take us there in his van. We said that we would just walk. He just kept insisting to the point
that we gave in. So here we are in a strange van, in a strange country with a strange man. But what can .6 miles hurt. It would have probably taken him one to two minutes at the most, right? Right off the bat, he tells us that the signs are confusing, so he is going to take us a better way. I look at Larry with wide eyes, but he just smiles. You can imagine the thoughts that are going through my head. He starts asking about America. We answer his questions, but he begins to tell us how Portugal is connected to America through all the way back to Christopher Columbus. He knows all the cities in American where there is a concentration of Portuguese speaking people. Fifteen minutes later—did you get that? Fifteen minutes to go .6 miles??? So fifteen minutes later he stops at a café. I have never been so glad to get out of a van in my life!!! By this time, we are looking at the path ahead on the road and we are thinking of getting a taxi for the next town. We asked him if there was a taxi nearby. He goes into the café and asked someone about a taxi. No one knew a number, so he looks in the newspaper and can’t find a number. We had offered to pay him for bringing us to the café and he refused, but he said we could buy him a cup of coffee. We ordered three cups of expresso and sat down. We noticed that everyone in the café knew him and he was shaking hands with everyone. I said, “Does everyone in here know you?” He said, Yes, because of a movie I produced. I will show you the trailer” So we sat and he showed us a Youtube trailer of the movie he produced. He pointed out himself, his Jeep, his mother and father and several other things about the town. After that, he gave us the history of Portugal. We are now into an hour visit with Horacio Batalha. Yes, we finally ask him his name. After coffee he tells us that he will take us to Coimbra because it is too confusing to get a taxi. We agree if he will let us pay him. He says a very emphatic NO! Now on the way (4 miles, remember), he takes us on a trip to show us where he lives, the Jeep that is in the movie and the street where the trailer takes place. We finally arrive in Coimbra after an hour and a half. We never tell him where to take us, because frankly we do not know. He takes us to a museum that has a model that depicts the Portuguese history. I feel like I know the whole history by this time. But I have to say, I have never seen anyone as excited about their country as Horacio. And to our great comfort, the place he took us is right on the Camino path. It is a welcoming sight to see the yellow arrow. We again offered to pay him at least for the gas, which is about $6 a gallon here. He refused until we told him the $20 was a gift. He smiled and said he would take a gift. He taught me the two-cheek kiss that I have seen many times in Portugal. He shook Larry’s hand. We thought he was basically a kid, maybe 25, but he was 39 and proud of his young look. We said goodbye to a great memory.
By the way, if you are interested, Google—Os Tomatoes Do Padre Inacio and you can see the trailer too. And you can see it was by Horacio Batalha. Only the Rice’s would encounter such a person and adventure. Life is so good to us. We love every day! We will someday have to get Tracy Wilson, our Spanish teacher cousin to interpret it all for us.
So we are safe, and have a story to add to the chapters of our life. Now to find a motel. This is a rest day tomorrow, so we will stay for two nights. Have not done that since Lisbon, so we are ready. We walk a little ways and try a hotel in the center of town—Hotel Larbelo. This first one we try is nice and only $35 a night. It is in the center of town by the river. We love the atmosphere in these cities. It is just so festive, and a great place to try new foods.
After a short rest, and shower, we head out to find something to eat. There
are less choices on Sunday. Some restaurants are not open at all. We can’t find a perigrino meal, so we settle for salads and sandwiches. They are delicious. After eating we head to the room to get a good night’s sleep. We actually have air conditioning for the first time since we got off the plane. Although it was been extremely hot, the walls of all the buildings are made of materials that keep most of the heat out. And luckily the nights here are very cool. So with windows open, sleep is generally very comfortable. I have only had
one night that the heat bothered my sleep, and I think it was just the location of my bed. I noticed that Larry was in his sleep sack that night. I definitely was not in a sack.
Day 15 September 9 Day of rest in Coimbra Total miles 158.7
We are staying here two nights, so there was no alarm this morning. We
sleep until 7:30. We probably could have slept a little later, but this is a $35 room with a $35 mattress–not the most comfortable bed. But who knows, it may be that we stayed in it longer than normal. We are generally so tired at night that we never consider the quality of the mattress. And we are up before daylight and with hurrying to get on the trail, on our mind, there is no
for mattress evaluations.
We went to a bar/pastry shop across the way and had a toasted chicken and
a toasted ham and cheese sandwich with juice and coffee. We had asked several places last night if anyone served eggs and bacon and everyone said no.So we felt lucky to find a sandwich. Don’t get me wrong, we love pastries, but not for breakfast. Also, by the way, every café in Portugal is a bar/pastry shop,
It is misting rain and real foggy this morning, so we head back to the room. Larry needs to go find an ATM for cash. We do not carry much cash, so it is always a job for the big cities. I head to the room to wash my hair (no hair dryer, so it has to air dry), and work on the blog. We will be here for a while until it is time to sight see and get some lunch.
We saw a poster on the walk yesterday that advertised a perigrino (pilgrim) meal for $8.50. That is a real good price for the city. On the trail it is usually $7.00. We went to find the restaurant. It was actually across the way from our hotel. We had appetizer of olives, some kind of hummas looking stuff with bread. Then the meal was soup, main dish, dessert and after dinner coffee. It always comes with wine or water. Now I am listing what was supposed to come with the, but the restaurant was extremely busy with only two waiters and we got shorted the soup. They came out with the entrée first, and when we saw the size of the dish, there is no way we could have held soup also. Larry got the fish dish—full of all kinds of fish including muscles, with potatoes, peppers and onions. It was delicious. I had the chicken and
rice dish. It was full of chicken and very good. For dessert we had fruit and espresso, which is always good. To say we were stuffed is an understatement. We waddled on sightseeing before going back to the room to dress for dinner, and make decisions about tomorrow.
As you know we are a few days behind schedule because of the heat. We really should have taken a train through a couple of those deserts instead of taking two days to walk them. But we try not to look aback with regrets because we met some people we would not have met and had some experiences that we would not have experienced. We would have not gotten to stay at the dairy barn—that was a great experience. Any way, we are planning on taking the train a couple of days from here to Porto. Our guide book basically say that there is very little scenery and we notice on the map that the train runs along side the road. There is no real path, it is just walking on the road, so we will really not miss anything if we look out the window of the train. We feel like this is a great time to make up some time. We don’t really have a deadline, but in our mind six weeks is enough.
Tomorrow will be a train day, so we walked to the train station to get a schedule. It is just so mind blowing. The train will take about an hour—it would have taken us eight hours to walk. That is funny, but we are here to walk the Camino. We just lose sight of the real world of transportation. It seems like we are walking across continents and we have walked nearly 160 miles, but that would probably be 3-4 hours in a car. Ben, my friend told me the other day that on the fast train it was 2.5 hours to Porto. That is 250 miles and will take us a minimum of thirteen days—if we made a stage a day. Yes,
has certainly made it easy on people.
We met Ken at 6:00 for dinner. He had eaten spaghetti for dinner last night, and that sounded good to us, so we asked him if he minded eating Italian again. He said no, so we had spaghetti and bread and dessert. It was very good. We sat and talked for about two hours. He is a military guy so he has lots of interesting stories to share. We have thoroughly enjoyed his company. We are now on facebook together, so if we never see him in person again, we will always be connected. That’s why I love facebook.
We headed back to the room to finish the blog and get ready for bed. We are catching the train tomorrow, so we do not have to get up real early. Tomorrow seems to be shaping up for an easy day.
Day 16 September 10 Coimbra to Mealhada 14.4 miles (173.1 total miles)
This is a train day and it does not leave until nearly 1:00, so we slept until 7:45. Nice!! After packing for a few minutes, we headed to breakfast for another ham and cheese sandwich, juice and coffee. After that we walked around a few minutes and saw Ken again. He is from Arizona and we have enjoyed some good times with him along the way. We just keep bumping into him even though we are on very different schedules. Each time we part we know it could be the last time. He is staying here another night before going on, but he will take the train somewhere along the way, so who knows. That is the way of the Camino.
It was then time to go back to the room and do some serious packing and be
ready to board the train. We boarded the train at 11:55 and arrived about 1:00. We had to walk about a mile to find the albergue for the night. It contains eight bunk beds, so sleeps sixteen. We were the first ones here, so we got our choice of beds. We chose the bunk bed closest to the bathroom and closest to the window. It is very nice and very clean. We had a great time talking with the owner. He speaks very good English and loves American sports. He wanted to know if we lived close to where Michael Jordan went to school,
since we were in North Carolina. We told him we taught Charles Barkley in middle school. He said, “Oh you must have lived in Leeds, Alabama.” He kept talking and we decided he knew more about Charles than we do. He says he never misses him on TV. His daddy is a big racecar fan. He has a huge selection of race cars on display in the albergue office, where we got checked in.
Now it was time to go get some lunch. He told us where to eat to save money. It was a great meal—too much really and was only $6.00. It was a
half a chicken, rice, french fries and salad for only $6.50 each. These prices just keep amazing me. It is obvious we are not going to be able to eat dinner in just a couple of hours, so we head to the supermarket to get some fruit for dinner. We bought a ½ a cantaloupe, two peaches, grapes and a roll (to eat with our cheese we bought a few days ago), and all of this was $2.50. Once again, shocked!!
We had to wait for the supermarket to open. They take a siesta in the afternoon until 2:30, so we sat at an outdoor café and ordered coffee and a small pastry. They really know how to take life and make it simple. I have yet to see anyone really upset with life. I love this lifestyle.
We went by the tourist information center to check on the train activity from here to Porto. We did not necessarily like what we heard. This is the last place you can catch a train into Porto. If we decide not to ride the train, we are committed to walking on the highway for the next four days. The decision was not easy, but we decided to take the train to Porto and start from there. On the train ride this morning, there were several people already committed to going Porto. We are just a little stubborn, I guess. So we will be at the train in the morning. Don’t know if we can afford it. It will be $7.00 for both of us!!!!
We went back and took a little rest—from the train ride, I guess! What a change for us. It will be so good to get to Porto and start the real walk—being committed to walk and not ride. But life goes on. We wouldn’t trade any of the experiences that we have had—good or bad.
When we went back to the albergue, we were talking to the owner about the albergue and how long he had owned it. He said it was built by his grandfather. His grandfather won the lottery twice, and each time he built more. It is actually a hotel (with private rooms that are filled tonight), along with an albergue. We learn such interesting info when we take the time to talk to people.
Day 17 September 11 Mealhada to Porto 67.3 miles (total 240.4)
Since we are taking the train today, we were not in a rush. We just lay in bed until most all of the pilgrims had gotten dressed and left—most before
daylight. So we basically we had the facilities to ourselves to get ready for the day. We also stopped to read a letter that Marta had given us last night before bed. She asked us to wait until morning and read it together. It was a tear jerker! It was very touching to read the sweet letter about the impact we had on her life in these last ten or so days. She was giving God the praise for sending us her way to show us how to walk a Camino. We had
given her one of our cards with the website for our blog in case she wanted to read it when we got home. She said those words on the front had been like a “name” for her Camino and she had repeated them every day. We had no idea that the stories we told her from the last Camino would mean so much to her, but she called it “wisdom.” We love how God uses things that we say and do for His Glory. The only agenda we ever have is to in every way let people know that God is real. It is not a religion, it is a relationship. She gave us the letter because she thought that it might be the last time we saw her. She has a friend now and they are walking the entire way, so our paths may not cross.
We walked about a mile into town and found a café for breakfast. There was a lady there who spoke fluent English. She had just moved back to Portugal, her home, after living in England for the last seventeen years. We asked her about breakfast foods, and we got the same old ham and cheese sandwich story. Larry asked her if they had eggs. She gave us a funny look and said to let her just ask. She asked if we wanted bacon, and if we wanted the eggs fried or scrambled. Larry told her we didn’t care—just eggs and bacon. So said, no problem. So what we got was a fried egg with bacon on a sandwich. Not what we really expected, but it was fine. We just had to be careful of the runny yellow that came out when you bit the sandwich, but otherwise it tasted good and was a good change.
We then went to the train station and bought our ticket to Porto. It was leaving in thirty minutes and would take an hour to get to Porto. As we road along the track and saw all the industrial towns, we were again grateful that we had not walked, but rode the train.
When we arrived in Porto, we were overwhelmed with the beauty of the city. We saw that we had a lot of sightseeing to do in a day and a half. Larry had made reservations the night before in the center of town where the path always starts, usually at the cathedral. So we had no
idea what our room would look like. After staying in albergues, any private room is nice. Our map said it was 27 minutes away, so we began to walk to find it. The cathedral is always in the old part of the city, so we knew it was not a modern hotel. It was no trouble to find and turned out to be very nice and clean. But to our surprise it had four twin beds in it. It is costing $64 a night—a little high for the budget, but most rooms Larry looked at were over $200, so we feel blessed. The excess in the budget just began to shrink. We had been warned that the last part of the trip would be more expensive because it is along the ocean—kind of like spending more when you go to the beach. The demand is higher.
After getting settled in, we went to find lunch and search for the arrow around the cathedral. The sights are just phenomenal. I try to take pictures, but to show the real picture of the area you would have to take one picture after another for hours. The Cathedral was so large that I did shoot a video of it. It is just too big to get in one picture. I have never seen such tile work in my life. When we saw the magnitude of the city, we decided to take a little city train all around town. We would never see it all just walking. We took about
a two-hour tour. Part of the tour was to a wine cellar. I do not really know enough to even talk about this, but all port wine comes from Porto. They are very proud of this and want everyone to know exactly how it is made. So on part of the tour we watched a video and took a short tour through a wine cellar. I could not even begin to describe how big these barrels are. We had a guide who spoke English, but his accent was not southern and he talked like he only had a short time to get out all the words. We understood very little, except when he showed pictures. They still do some stomping of the grapes. It is to a marching count of one-two, one-two, and that is the only sound that is heard. It showed people with what looked like rubber covers for their feet up to their knees. Some of the wine is over forty years old and we
saw one bottle that was $245, and another that was over $900. This was the exception, though. Most was $30-$50 dollars and some as low as $5, depending on how long it was fermented and how old it was. It was just all above my head, but very interesting.
After our tour of the city it was time for dinner. We had seen a sign earlier at a restaurant that advertised peregrino meals—you know by now what that means—four courses for $6. But when we went back, we found out it was actually $7. The funny thing is, Larry and I both ordered the exact same thing—pork. You never really know what that
means, and what your sides are going to be, but it is usually french fries and salad. For my sides I got roasted potatoes and salad. For Larry’s sides he go
sautéed vegetables and rice. Go figure. You just learn to eat whatever they bring. After dinner we had coffee and dessert, then headed back to the room to blog and get ready for bed.
Day 18 September 12 Porto
This was our second day in Porto, so the only miles we have traveled is around town. We got up this morning around 7:00 and headed out to find breakfast. We found some real breakfast food at the first place we topped. They have funny names for some items. I ordered an omelet—which is scrambled eggs on a roll, similar to a crescent roll, but harder. Larry got scrambled eggs and bacon. He did not get any bread, so I shared half of my bread with him. This and 3 cups (no refills) of coffee was $12.50. So you see the prices are higher
in town. Of course, I know the expenses in town are higher also.
After breakfast we headed to the river. The beauty there is indescribable. We took many, many pictures. When we got to the other side of the river, they were serving fresh juice. They gave you the oranges and you made it yourself in their machine. We had just had breakfast, so I was not interested in orange juice, but I was interested
in the fresh sugar cane juice. Yes, they fed the stalks through a machine and out came the fresh juice. The flavor of this juice reminded me so much of my childhood. Every summer we had fresh sugar cane, and we would go watch where they would squeeze the juice out of the canes and cook the juice and make syrup. We grew our own sugar cane– but not enough to make syrup, but enough to chew and get the juice. I have chewed many mouthfuls of sugarcane in my lifetime. It was always such a sweet treat. I have not done this for years. It was so refreshing. Next I did a little local jewelry shopping. That is not too much weight to carry in a backpack.
We then went back to the room to freshen up a bit. It is pretty hot.
Supposed to go to 91 degrees today. We have been tracking weather at home during all parts of the year that we were going to be here so we would know how to pack. It has always been in the 70’s during this time of the year. But not now. I guess it is just meant for us to have some extra warmth. We are not really concerned because we will be walking along the coast tomorrow. The breeze from the ocean should help. We are going to try to get an early start in the morning and that will help also.
Then it was time to go get some lunch. We found a perigrino meal for $6. It was soup, chicken, rice, potatoes and salad and afterwards, expresso. We are learning to take a shot of caffeine. We still cannot get over these small cups. It is funny because no one sits down and drinks coffee. It is like taking a shot of whiskey. Just raise you head and throw it down your throat—and it is over. Seems funny to us.
At dinnertime we walked to a new part of town to find something to eat.
There was a lot of activity going on—lots of music in the streets. You might see some of this on the weekend in America, but here it is every night. I love the walking around in the city, enjoying the sights. I bought a couple of very small Christmas ornaments. For dinner Larry had spaghetti and I had baked chicken with vegetables. It was very good and reasonably priced. After dinner we walked to the subway to check on times in the morning. We are going to
take a short ride out of town before we get on the trail. Porto is a huge place and we don’t want to spend the first three hours walking across the city. We are anxious to get out on the path and find the ocean.
Day 19 September 13 Porto to Angeiras 10 miles
This morning was early rising. We set the alarm for 5:00 and wanted to be at the Metro by 6:00 when the subway started. We are taking the metro to avoid walking across Porto. If you have seen my pictures, you know it is a huge city. Our book suggested we take the metro to avoid walking all day to get out of Porto and getting a room at the edge of the city. On the Metro we went through seventeen stations to get to the edge of the city to start walking.
There were no clear arrows when we got off, but we knew the first thing we were to look for was a bridge that we had to walk over to get on the path. It said it was a movable bridge. Well, we missed it because what we saw was a huge metal structure standing straight up. It did not look like a bridge because it was open to let ships pass through. We saw a bridge up ahead so we went to cross that bridge. Some other pilgrims missed it too, because we
saw backpackers ahead of us. So, we had to circle down and get on the path. This was actually great timing because with our delay, we got to stop at McDonalds and get a cup of coffee and a little breakfast. McDonalds doesn’t open until 8:00 and we got there right at 8:00. If we had walked across the correct bridge, we would have missed our coffee because that was the only thing open. We have just learned not to question anything and depend on Emanuel—God is with us!
When we reached the ocean, of course it was breathtaking. The white caps,
the people surfing and the cool breeze coming off the water is everything good that you can imagine. Even McDonalds food, which I generally dislike, taste good when you are sitting by the ocean.
The walk along the ocean is mostly boardwalks. There are literally miles of them. It got pretty hot, because there was no shade, but just when we thought it was unbearable, a great wind would come off the water and cool us down. Because it was smooth walking on the boardwalk, it made out walk fast. We stopped a couple of times to use the bathroom and get some juice and coffee and rest our feet. But we were surprised that we made it so fast. We started really walking a McDonalds at 8:30 and we reached our town before noon.
We actually had reservations for tonight. When we were watching Youtube videos, we saw where a couple stayed in a little wood cabin. Since Larry and I like to experience different places to stay, we reserved what we thought was a tiny cabin. As it turned out, the tiny houses are not all cabins. They are a variety of tents, campers, campers with tents hooked to them, tiny houses with porches, and then just tiny houses. We did not actually get to choose which one we got. It is just whatever is available. When we arrived, they told us that check in time was 5:00. It was 12:00, so I asked her what we were supposed to do until 5:00. That is when she told us that on the grounds there is a restaurant, a grocery store and a huge swimming pool. We went
to the pool intending to swim and relieve ourselves of the sweat from the hot walk. But NO, it was cold, very, very cold. So, dipped our feet, lay down on a lounge chair and took a rest and even a short nap. There were a few brave children that got in the water, but most adults just watched.
We ate lunch at the restaurant. They had a perigrino meal of fish soup, fish or chicken and rice or spaghetti, dessert and water or wine. All for $7.50. Larry had the fish—whole, fried, big sardines and I had the chicken. We can have this again for dinner 7:00 tonight if we want to. While there a cat appeared in the dining room. It looked so skinny. She got one of my pieces of chicken! This is one thing very different from the Franciscan Camino last year. I literally saw hundreds of cats. This year I have seen very few, but
lots of dogs.
After pool time, we went to check in and find our surprise housing. Ours is a tiny house with a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. It has all the dishes, etc to do our own cooking if we wanted to. When we went in it was rather hot. We have not had air-conditioning but one night since we have been in Portugal. Because of the constant breeze and the materials that the buildings are made or, it has not been a problem. A couple of times I have gotten hot during the middle of the night, but overall it has been ok. I’m a little concerned about tonight because of the temperature outside. But we went in and opened all the windows and left to get something cold to drink and work on the blog.
We returned to the room to shower and boy were we surprised. The room had not only cooled off, but we had to close most of the windows, especially the one in the bathroom where I was showering. After I showered it was a little early to go to dinner, so I laid down on the bed to wait for Larry to shower. I had to pull out the covers. I see why there is no need for air-
conditioning. Larry looked at the weather and it is supposed to be 76 degrees in the morning—we will need jackets with the wind blowing off the ocean.
We went to dinner and instead of having the perigrino meal we both had salads with chicken on them. This gave me some pieces of chicken to give to my kitten friend, who I found out has babies.
Day 20 September 14 Angeiras to Povoa Varzim 10 miles
Today we left our tiny house at 6:45. It was just about daylight and a little
cool. I had zipped on my long pants and long-sleeved shirt thinking I might be a little cold. It was cool for a while, but after about 30 minutes of walking, those two things came off and back in the pack. It was a perfect temperature for walking. We were at the ocean in less than five minutes. The ocean, of course, was beautiful. Every wave seemed like it was more beautiful than the last, so we have many pictures, but really many of them are just alike if you are just looking at pictures. The view just does not show up in a picture.
We walked for an hour and a half before we found a café open for coffee. This was in a little town called Vila Cha. As we were sitting at our outside table, we began to see people gathering at some buckets that two women had set up—with a scale on one of the tables. One lady began to reach down in the bucket and pull out something. Of course inquiring minds want to know, so I walked over to see what was in the buckets. Well, it was fresh “catch of
the day”. In this case it was octopus, crabs and sardines. The line was forming fast and in just a few minutes everything was gone, except a few sardines. I’m sure they didn’t last long after we left. We had seen people yesterday along the shore looking for something in the edge of the water around the big rocks. We were a long way away and couldn’t see what they were pulling out of the rocks. Now I wonder if it was crabs or octopuses. We also watched them bait their nets to catch the crabs. This is what we love about the
Camino. You get to see people in their real habitat. The only way we could have been happier would be if they invited us to go fishing with them. This happened in Canada one time when two guys asked us to go lobstering with them. It is an experience that we will never forget.
We kept walking along the coast for about three more hours. We did stop one time to rest and get a cup of coffee, but other than that we walked all morning. It was just a great day to walk and even though we were in the sun the whole time it was a lot cooler than we are used to and there was a
constant breeze. Finally, our arrows took us off the boardwalk and into a town. We loved the ocean walk, but it was time for something different. We love the little villages we go through. We finally reached the town of Vila Do Conde and found a place to eat lunch. We both had grilled chicken salads and Larry had a bowl of soup that we think was acorn squash. It was all delicious. We were really planning to stay here tonight, but we were so rested that we decided to go on to the next town. We were planning our travels based on yesterday, but because the weather was so much cooler, we decided to go on to Povoa Varzim.
When we arrived here we had to find the cathedral, because the albergue
we planned to stay in was close to the cathedral. The albergue was a donitiva—donation only—so we really did not know what to expect. We stayed in one last year that meant sleeping on the floor. Boy, were we fooled. This is probably one of the nicest—if not the nicest albergues we have ever stayed in. Everything is super clean and since it is so huge—three to four stories high—and so few pilgrims, that Larry and I are in a room with two bunk beds
with no other pilgrims. In other words, we have a private room. The manager took us to another room with several beds, and then he turned around and said follow me. He had changed his mind and took us to the private room. Thank you Jesus. What a bonus.
After showering and washing our clothes, we took a little rest and worked on the blog. It is Saturday night and Larry says we are going on a date. Just before we got ready to leave, we got a big surprise. Forget the private room!! In walked a couple from Brazil. It’s all good. We at least agreed on a bedtime and a getting up time. This was pretty easy considering we do not speak each other’s language.
We soon left for date night. Our date was a nice restaurant on the beach. We ordered spaghetti and a big salad. Ordering at a restaurant is not an easy thing to do. We had decided that spaghetti carbonara meant spaghetti with meat sauce, and the picture of the salad looked good also. Well, what we got was spaghetti with a white sauce and the meat was ham. Oh well! Then our salad was a tossed salad with tuna on it. It was good too. Just not
what we wanted. We will be more careful next time.
As we walked across the open mall from our restaurant, we saw them setting up for a band tonight. We thought, Oh boy, some good music. Once again disappointed—it did not start until 10:00!! That was exactly the time we agreed upon to be in bed with our new roommates. Oh well, you win some and you lose some. We need the rest anyway. We will have a longer day tomorrow.
Day 21 September 15 Povoa de Varzim to Marinhas 15 miles
We left this morning at 6:45, not in the best of moods. The wonderful, clean albergue that we bragged so much about just about turned into a nightmare. Camino life 101. Larry and I came back from eating, finished the blog and went to our room about nine thirty and laid down and waited for our roommates. They came in around 9:45 and she starts to sing. Very nice voice, but we are more interested in sleep. Larry can sleep through a storm, not me so much. She finally stopped singing and I went to sleep before they climbed up on the top bunks. At 10:00 the music from the concert that we thought we had missed started up. The bandstand was at least three blocks away, but we could hear it nicely in our room. Before they went to bed, they locked our door. Why I will never know. Most albergues do no even have doors, so pilgrims can get up in the middle of the night and use the restroom. That would be me!!!! So around 12:00, I get up and the door is
locked. I cannot get the key to work!! So finally, after making so much noise, Larry gets up to help me. He can’t get it to work either—and of course it is dark and we can’t see the key or the keyhole. Then the Brazilian lady climbs off her bed and very loudly in Portuguese begins to instructs us as to how to open a door. Of course, we do not understand a word she says. She finally gets it open and I go do my job. I get back into the room and fireworks or very loud guns start going off. This lasts until 12:27. At this point I have gotten maybe fifteen minutes of sleep. Oh and did I mention
our room was on the front of the building with floodlights coming through the window so there was almost no darkness in our room? I get to sleep at probably 1:00. So, we woke up just ready to get out of there. I just wanted coffee and to watch the ocean. It was not a good idea to make us wait until this morning to give our donation. I won’t embarrass myself by telling you how little we gave. We decided that we preferred the albergues with a lot of people in them. This is the first time we have ever stayed with just two people. It just gets a little too personal.
Nothing opens early in Portugal and plus it is Sunday, so we know coffee is not coming soon. But we get out beside the ocean, it is very cool and despite our bad night’s sleep, we have lots of energy. After walking about an hour and a half, we find a café. It is also a bakery, and I think they have baked all night. There were trays of some of the most delicious looking breads and pastries that I have ever need. We settle for the ham and cheese sandwich—standard fare here for breakfast, and two coffees. The sandwich is so big that I could only eat half of mine and Larry ate about two-thirds of his. It would be great at lunch time.
We walked along the ocean for another two hours before the path routed us
inland. This was a refreshing break from the shoreline scenery, and we got to see how people lived away from the ocean. But when we got to going by a lot of green houses and farmland, we started steering back to the ocean where we could find some food. It was about lunch time. We found a great little café that had fresh fruit with yogurt. It was great with my other half of sandwich. Larry had spaghetti.
We made such good time today that we were going to reach our albergue around 12:30. But when we got there, it was full. This is the first time this
has ever happened to us, but it was pretty small and we are beginning to pick up more pilgrims. So, we had to make a decision to get a hotel or go on to the next town. Since it was so early, we decided to walk on. The only problem with this decision is that we are going to have to backtrack a little tomorrow to get on the ocean part. This is the first time we have walked on a path that gives this many options. We make multiple decisions every day as to which route to take. We have seen a lot of the central walk through Portugal, so we want to see the ocean views. In a lot of places the path is so close that you can switch back and forth when it begins to get boring.
We arrived at the next albergue at 3:00. It is also a donativo—donation
only. Maybe we will be impressed to give more. They do have free laundry. But the shower is cold water only and we are packed in the room like sardines. Mostly that does not bother us. We are just here to sleep. The only bad thing for me is that I have to have a top bunk. All the bottom ones were taken. We are just glad to have a bed at this point.
After we got settled, we went to do our laundry and work on the blog. We had to wait in line for the washer, so that gave us time to bathe and get ready for dinner. Cold shower was not too bad, but it was the quickest shower in history for both of us.
We then went to dinner. There was a fantastic restaurant in town. We had a great soup and grilled chicken salad. These people know how to make soup. We have no idea what is in it—it was just called vegetable creamed soup.
Back to the albergue to check the dryer and see how our clothes are doing. Then to bed to see how tonight goes. We hope that from the lack of sleep last night that it will take more than a rock band, a locked door and a singing Brazilian to keep us awake.
Day 22 September 16 Marinhas to Viana do Castelo 14 miles
Today was—-how can I say this—-different. The Dora the Explorer (AKA Larry), decided to take us on the unknown journey. In Camino language this is known as the litoral (literal) path. In short this mean—there are no arrows pointing the way. It does seem easy because it shows the dots along the coastline. How hard could that be? Well, we found out that it could be very hard because it shows no land marks—just beach. So we find our way off the path over to the beach. Now along the way there are roads. and roads coming into roads. On the marked path, it will tell you which way to go—left, right or straight. So at this point it seems we would always go left because that is toward the ocean. That works fine until the road dead ends. Then we go back or head for the sand along the ocean. We did this for a while until we realized how hard it was to walk in sand and over sand dunes. And how long it would take us, because we are now using different muscles in our feet and we are beginning to feel it. A nice boardwalk right now would certainly be welcomed, but we look down the beach and cannot see anything for miles except solid rocks. We see a town on the right side of the road but we know that is the path that leads over three mountains that we had decided to avoid when we decided on the beach route. After three hours of no arrows and having no idea where we are on the map because there are no towns to guide us, we find a man who speaks English. He at least shows us where we are on the map. That is comforting until we realize how far we had NOT gone in three hours. At our normal pace we
should have gone six miles by now. Not really knowing, because there are no mile markers on the litoral path, we figure we have probably gone about four miles. At this point we head toward the town. I told Larry I was going to kiss the first arrow we saw. We finally did see an arrow, so we started looking for a café. We had had coffee and split a hot from the oven ham and cheese right after we life the albergue this morning, but that was wearing thin. By the way that hot from the oven pastry was to die for. It was hot, soft and reminded me of a Krispy Kreme donut, except that it wasn’t sweet. It literally melted in my mouth and I think I could have eaten at least five.
So we found a café and again split a ham and cheese and had a coffee. This is where we decided to get back on the real Camino path. We walked over a small mountain—-thank goodness we had avoided one big mountain and at the bottom of that mountain we decided it was time for lunch. We had not seen one pilgrim all morning until right before this town and a few people we knew started passing us. One of the couples was the Brazilian couple that we had slept with in the nightmare albergue. This told
us how difficult that first mountain was. We had spent all morning walking God knows where and we were still ahead of the people who left our previous town. So at least we were not off time-wise.
After lunch we head off again on the path. By this time it is sprinkling rain, but not enough to suit up with rain gear. We are just enjoying cooling off. We did cover our packs just in case. I don’t know how many different arrow pictures I took after that. I was just so glad to see them that I went a little crazy. Now one more mountain and we would be close to the end. It was a rough one, but as always, the views were spectacular. It is not so much the uphill climb as it is the terrain you are walking on. It is not even and it is filled with rocks and boulders that you are trying to fit your feet around. This twisting, turning movement is
using every muscle that you have in your feet and your feet just get so, so tired. I was going so slow at times that I just wanted to cry. All the extra walking we did on the ocean side just added more tiredness. Finally, just a mile or so short of the next albergue, Larry started looking for a motel. At this point I knew his feet were hurting too. I would have walked on, but he knew we both had had enough for the day. We found a nice motel for $40 with a bathtub that I could lay in for an hour or so.
After my nice bubble bath soak, it was time to work on the blog. After blogging we dressed and went to dinner. The motel also serves perigrino meals.
The meal was delicious as always. Soup, half a chicken, rice, bread, water and coffee. It was a little pricier–$9.00 but was well worth it. I always mention water because water always cost extra in restaurants because it is bottled water.
We are looking ahead, as always, for the weather the next day and out a few
days, and we are not happy with what we see. We have been blessed this whole trip with no rain. For that we are very grateful, but the forecast does not look good for the next week. We had decided that we were not going to walk in the rain. We were either going to wait it out in towns or go forward on trains, buses, etc. If it is temporary that is alright, but constant rain not only slows you down, but visibility is not good and you miss the sights—and that is what we are here for. So, Larry and I are considering our options. When
we walked the Franciscan Camino last year it was do or die and the thought never crossed our mind about doing a stage a day and entering Santiago. Our drive is just not here this year. Some of it is disappointment because we are constantly comparing, but most of it is just the disappointment of not being able to walk on the first part of the trip from Lisbon to Porto because of the heat. Looking back, we would encourage anyone to start at Porto. Those who we are meeting along the way who started at Porto are full of energy and excitement for the trip. After 21 days and the obstacles we have faced, the excitement is not there. We are more excited about going to Italy than finishing this walk. We are even talking about adding Barcelona to the trip and skipping the next rainy days. We have a night to sleep on it, but we do know we are taking a taxi to the train station tomorrow to see what our options are.
Day 23 September 17 Vaina do Castelo to Porrino—326.8 total miles
We left this morning at 7:00 in a taxi to get to the train. It is calling for 70 percent chance of rain, so we are running from the rain. This is different. The mission is now more to see Portugal and Spain than it is to go from point A to point B. We just got so off track at the beginning from Lisbon that we are making decisions daily. We are still getting in the miles, it is just that the miles may come in the morning or in the afternoon depending on a lot of circumstances. The only firm decision that we have made is that we are not walking in the rain. So when we left the motel this morning, everything was wet where it had rained during the night. It was also very, very, foggy. We would have had to wait several hours for this to break because today was straight up a mountain. We were glad there was a train station because that is certainly not true of every town. Now the train ride was only about 30 minutes—we forget we are only going a few miles. But when we got to the next town, there was glorious sunshine.
There was a very, very nice hotel just a street over from the train station
and Larry went in to check prices. He came back and said he rented the room—-really, without checking with me? I’m the spreadsheet mama and we always confer, so I was surprised. It was $46! I have to remember what it would have cost at home, so it seemed like a deal to him! Anyway we went up to Lidl’s grocery store and bought our lunch. We are so hungry for fruit. Ham and cheese sandwiches—practically our only choice on the path—was getting old. Larry got some type of pastry with spinach in it, then we bought an apple, two plums, a peach and two bananas and it was only $1.90. I guess the $46 will fit nicely with the food prices.
We had to wait until 1:00 to check in our motel, so we found a park bench to eat our lunch. As soon as we got checked in we took off for a walk to explore the town. Looks much like many we have seen, but each town is still unique. Plus we had to scout out some restaurants for dinner—the perigrino meals, etc. We found two. One had soup, so we knew we had to have that. It was going to be $8.00. The one without soup was $6.50. We had to have the soup. We never know what the soup is—I’m not even sure they know what it is—all we know is that it is ALWAYS delicious.
After walking for a while, we decided we would eat before we went back to the hotel for little rest. Our meal was soup, bread, veal, salad, potatoes and oreo and lemon cheesecake. It was around 3:00 at this time. We rested for an hour or so, and then Larry began to search the computer for airfares to Rome. That is actually only a few days away. We are only a few stages away from Santiago. We are only about 60 miles away. In fact we will be in Santiago in a couple of days and will be flying out on Saturday.
Four hours later, we have plane reservations. Yes, it took him that long to
work out the hours, prices, luggage prices, etc. But he did a great job and we are able to fly with the excess money we have saved along the way. In fact we still have $60 left in the budget above our expenses so far. I guess the $46 hotel is not looking so bad.
So now it is 8:30 at night and we are going for dinner. It had been sprinkling rain a little while we were in the room, you could see it on the cars. Since it is late and we don’t want to eat heavily, we go to the $6.50 perigrino meal. There is no soup to start out with, but to our surprise our appetizer is barbeque ribs with bread and french fries. For the main meal, Larry got
chicken with salad and more french fries and I got a huge salad with some of the most delicious items—asparagus, bean sprouts, ham, cheese, tuna—you just never know what all the items are on the menu until they get to the table. But we have not once been disappointed.
We went back to the room and Larry told me we were going to a different
Camino path for tomorrow. Remember I said there were three paths and you could switch back and forth at your will. Well, tomorrow we are switching, but we will have to take the train. We could leave at 8:30 for $7.00 or wait until 11:00 and go for $3.00. We chose the latter, so I closed the computer knowing that I would have plenty of time to do the blog before we left the room. So, lights out!!
Day 24 September 18 Porrino to Vigo 20 miles
We slept until 6:30 this morning because breakfast did not start until 7:30 at the hotel. We paid for the lowest version of breakfast last night with our bill. The lowest version was muesli with milk and coffee. We love the muesli in Spain. We fell in love with it last year. It is all natural and raw with nuts and raisins. The kind in America is very processed with lots of oils and sugar and we don’t like it as much. Don’t get me wrong—it is delicious and Larry and I could eat a whole box. But we try to eat a little healthier than that.
. While waiting to leave for the train, we met a couple from Israel. Since we
had been there last year, we had lots to talk about. We asked them about a walk in Israel. We would love to go there and walk on the paths that Jesus walked. They said there was a path of sorts, but there would be no places to stay along the way. We might check that out when we get home.
So after finishing up the blog from yesterday, we head to the train station. We are at this stage just killing time to get to Santiago where we will fly to Rome. Looking at all three Camino trails, we picked one that has the town Vigo on it. It is a tourist, beach town with beautiful water. There are no algergues here, but lots of hostels. The hunt started when we go off the train, to find the best, cleanest and cheapest. We stopped into a café to get a snack and get our bearings straight as to where we were. This place is huge and looks like New York city with all the giant building everywhere. Larry got a hamburger—the best we have had so far and I ate my fruit that we got from Lidl’s this morning before we left, I did get one bite of Larry’s hamburger. That is how I knew it was the best yet. After eating and getting some good directions from the café owner, we were on our way. Remember we are back on the coastal way with NO arrows, so we are depending on the
microscopic print in our book to help us find a room.
Larry calls several numbers, but the owner’s English is so bad, we just give up and start walking. We always know to find the cathedral in town to get started. But we actually found a few hotels along the way. One that the book suggested was full, the second one was a little high—$59, but the third one was the charm. It was $60 including breakfast. By this time we are done hunting, so we take it. It was on the 5th floor and actually had an elevator. Only one problem—Larry and I and our backpacks do not fit in the elevator. So he has to send me up first and return the elevator to him. My mind just imagines a very overweight man or woman trying to fit in that little thing. That would be a sight for America’s Funniest Videos.
After settling in our room, we left to go sightseeing and finding something to eat for dinner. There is no such thing as Perigrino meals here, so we are scoping out some restaurants while sightseeing. After a few hours we begin to get a little hungry and decide to get something small just to hold us over until dinner time. Dinner time over here is not when you decide to eat—you eat when something opens, usually around 7:00- 8:00. So we find a café and they are advertising hamburgers. I look at the menu and the cheapest hamburger on the menu is $3.00. I’m thinking like McDonalds—the higher the price the bigger the burger. So I get the smaller/ cheaper because I do not want anything big. Boy was I fooled. The cheaper price meant with no lettuce and tomato. It was huge—the biggest hamburger I have ever seen
and it came with fries. I forgot to take a picture of it. I wish I had. I knew then that I would not want a big dinner, so we quit looking for restaurants for tonight, we would just find one close to the hotel that had a salad. Then Larry remembered that there was a small restaurant connected to our hotel and we would just check there.
On our walk, we checked out a boat ride for tomorrow. Vigo is where Jules Vernes got his idea for the movie, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. On our walk we saw a statue of him. We found the ticket office to buy the ticket but there was no one there. We called the number and they said just be here tomorrow by 11:00 and we would have time to get our ticket before the 12:00 departure. It is an hour and a half ride. They place camera’s over the side of the boat and let you see what is below. We watched a Youtube video and if we get to see what the video shows it should be interesting.
We walked back to the hotel and checked on dinner tonight. Unbelievable—they do not serve until 8:30. Well, we will at least have time to digest this huge hamburger before we eat again. So we head to the room to work on the blog and let Larry start checking for some hotels in Italy.
8:30 finally arrived and to our surprise, they did have a perigrino meal. They do not call it that, they just call it menu of the day. We chose chicken as our main course—that is always safe. We had the choice of pork, chicken or fish. Larry asked what kind of fish it was and she just said the kind with a
long nose. He wasn’t into long-nosed fish tonight. I was a little disappointed because I wanted to see what it looked like. But not enough to order it. We had chicken, potatoes, salad, bread, drinks and dessert for only $6,50. We will be eating there tomorrow night, too. Maybe I can talk Larry into the long-nosed fish if that is one of their options. I have to see what it looks
like.
After dinner we headed for the room to get ready for bed. It has a wonderful bathtub. I don’t know why this is so important to me. I never take a tub bath at home, but for some reason it spells luxury. Maybe it is because I have time to just lay there and enjoy the bubbles. At home I am just too busy.
Day 25 September 19 Vigo
We did not set an alarm for today because our first appointment was breakfast that was between 7:00 and 11:00. Then our next appointment was at 11:00 to buy tickets for the boat trip to see the underwater sea life.
The breakfast was an all you can eat bar with all the coffee we wanted at no extra charge. It was $10.00 for both of us and was very good. The only thing I hate about it is that I eat too much. Why I think I have to try everything on the bar is beyond me. I always leave disappointed at myself which is why I almost never eat at an all-you-can eat restaurant at home. They had at least five different pastries, cereal, ham and cheese to make sandwiches, toast jelly—really a continental breakfast with variety. No eggs and bacon!
After breakfast we left to go buy our tickets. Of course we were early and
had to wait for the guy to open up the ticket stand. To our dismay, the boat was not going out today. Larry and I had noticed on the way to the ticket booth that it was very cloudy over the water. But it was hazy the day before when the sun was shining, so we were not overly concerned. When I showed my grave disappointment, the man assured me that he was a lot more disappointed than I was. He said that it meant no money at all for them
today, but it was just too dangerous. I wanted to cry. We had purposely stayed an extra day just for this trip. But I saw the Youtube video, so I at least got a glimpse of what we would have seen. I’ll just have to go home and watch 20,000 Under the Sea, knowing that Vigo was the inspiration for Jules Vernes to write the book.
So, what is a girl to do to get over disappointment—-go shopping! I always do a little shopping at the end of these walks because on the last day I totally refuse to wear those hiking pants and shoes that I have worn for 25 days. I usually buy jeans and comfortable shoes of some sort,
and maybe a new top. So off we went. Larry went a little different direction than I did, and I saw three or four guys with purses laying on the sidewalk. As I looked closer, they were the name brand purses—Channel, Michael Kors, Coach, etc. I picked one I liked and ask him how much, he said $30.00. I told him I didn’t have any money and I needed to discuss it with my husband. He did not seem very happy about that, so I went to get Larry. When I got him, we walked up to a different guy and he
said $25.00. I was happy about that, but Larry said, “What about $20”? He hedged a little and I gave Larry the evil eye. The guy needed to make a living. Then Larry started messing with him and said, “I’ll give you $20 plus the change in my pocket—whatever that is. The guy agreed. Larry already knew he had at least $5.00 in change and maybe a little more. So, when he pulled out his hand and dropped it in the guys hand, the guy had a huge grin on his face as if to say, “ Ha Ha, I got you”. All the while Larry was playing with him he kept saying Policia!, Policia! Larry said, Will they stop you? He said, “yes”. Now you have to realize that this guy does not speak English, so this whole conversation is done through sign language. There
are only two words that he knows—$25.00 and Policia. Just as Larry handed him the money, all the purses, which are attached to ropes were quickly pulled up and he takes of running—all four of the guys do. We look up and her comes a police car with two cops getting out. But these guys are fast. They are gone. We walk a few blocks and see them again. The guy grins real big and I ask him can I have a picture. He agrees. Larry asks if they would put him in jail if he were caught and he said yes. There was a big cruise ship in the harbor and we wondered if the city did not want them harassing the people on the cruise. Anyway I got my MK purse with all the authentic tags. Larry said it was probably stolen. I hope not, but oh well!!
I them went to find me some jeans and some shoes. I found some leather
tie up shoes that I thought would look good with jeans on sale for $35.00, some jeans on sale for $9.00 and a top on sale for $7.99. I’m feeling pretty good right now and am all set for the next week. This will not weigh that much—remember I have to carry all the weight on my back, so I was careful to get very light items.
After shopping we headed back to the room for Larry to look for plane tickets from Venice to home, We pre-bought our tickets last year and had to cancel them because our days did not match up. We wanted to avoid the cancellation fee this year so we waited. This process actually took several hours to match up everything and get home when we wanted to. So that meant that the computer was being used and I could not work on the blog until after dinner.
At dinner time— yes, 8:30 again. These European people eat so late!! We had another perigrino meal of pork, potatoes, rice, salad, dessert and drink for 6,50. This is all we have spent for food today. The breakfast was enough for lunch also. So, I did not feel too bad about my shopping spree, plus we saved the money that we would have spent for the boat ride. That was some money I did not want to save. Yes I am still disappointed.
Tomorrow we arrive in Santiago, so the trip to Portugal and Spain is about over.
Day 26 September 20 Vigo to Santiago 400 miles total
We once again slept to 7:30 with no strong agenda today. Our train to Santiago does not leave until 12:00, so we once again had time for a leisurely breakfast and additional coffee. Additional is the key word. There is no such thing as refills in Europe—not even at McDonald’s. So we love the buffets where there is extra coffee.
After breakfast we headed for the room to pack up and try to get my purchases in my pack and maybe slip a little into Larry’s pack. He made me wear my walking outfit on the last day because we will be
walking quite a bit to the train station in Vigo and into Santiago. He doesn’t trust my new shoes. We have had no foot problems thus far—except extremely tired feet and we do not want to start now. I know we will be walking a lot next week in Italy, so he is probably right. So, out comes the hiking pants and the whole outfit. My new $16.00 outfit will have to wait until tonight in Santiago.
We arrived at the train station an hour early just to make sure we had
everything in place with the correct times. We sure didn’t want to mess up today of all days. The train was right on time. It would be an hour and a half ride, so we decided to eat our packed lunch while riding. We arrived in Santiago about 1:00. We had to walk a ways to get to the middle of town where the cathedral is located. It is always such a joy to be here and experience the end of the journey. Hundreds are arriving, taking pictures and just celebrate what has just taken place in our lives. Coming from Portugal is so different, and we certainly made it interesting by changing from the coastal route, to the central route, to the literal route and sometimes back. But we finished the Camino our way and that is what it is all about.
When we walked into the town of Santiago, we felt right
at home. There was so much familiarity here. Down the first narrow street we were welcomed by shops offering free samples of Santiago cake and almond cookies. The streets were packed with so many arriving and besides it is Friday night so that brings out a lot of people, too. Now to find lodging for tonight.
Last year we stayed one night in the famous Paradour to celebrate my 70th birthday. It was very expensive, but a very special once in a lifetime experience. After we stayed one night there, we moved to the Universal Hotel and loved it. It was very, very nice and served a wonderful breakfast. So on the trip here Larry got on the internet and it said there were no rooms available. Larry didn’t give up, so he called and they said they had a room with a single bed. Larry asked was it big enough to sleep two and
they said no. Sometimes we stay in rooms where they are big enough for two, but she said she would not rent it to us. So where did Larry head once we got done with all the preliminaries?—-straight to the Universal Hotel. He went up to the desk and asked if they had a room, she hesitated for a minute and said, “Who for”? Larry said if was for him and his wife. She said, “Well, ok”. When we got to the room we saw why she hesitated. It had an extra twin bed in the room. So perseverance paid off and we got our room. The room was a little pricier than we are used to paying, but we just love this place and the location. It is close to everything that we enjoy,
After we got our room, we went for a walk to get a bowl of soup. We are addicted to European soups and it is the perfect meal when you just need a
little pick me up. This would hold us over until dinner
time. I also wanted to find a place to deposit the stones I had found along the trail. I know it is just a tradition, but I personally find it very meaningful. The people in the Old Testament would build monuments of stones as a reminder of God’s goodness and that is what I wanted mine to represent. I brought nine stones to represent my family. God has been so good to all of us. He blessed me and Larry with two wonderful boys, Doug and Brad, who gave us two wonderful daughters-in-law, Rhonda and Keasha, and from Brad and Keasha three wonderful grandchildren, Kari, Sarah and Joshua. This is something to be extremely thankful for. We are not a perfect family by any means, but we are perfectly made for each other and I wanted to place the stones in honor of this to show God my gratefulness, but more than anything to pray that our whole family would always know that this gift of family truly comes from Him. And because of that we would honor him throughout all our days. Then I placed three special stones for the three fold chord of friendship that I have with two wonderful girls who walk beside me in my spiritual walk with God. We are always there for each other no matter what we face. This is precious to me, so I wanted to honor our friendship and pray that it will always be based on our love for God. You know who you are!!!
After walking around for a while, we headed back to the room to freshen up for dinner. I am again longing for some different clothes. I thought last night was my final night in my hiking clothes, but I’m glad I listened to Larry this morning. When we got to Santiago it was cold, so my old standbys were much warmer. In fact, I had on two layers and it felt great.
It was dinnertime and we headed out to find a place to eat. There was a
man standing outside his restaurant handing out perigrino meal flyers, so that is where we headed. It meant more soup of some kind and for dessert they had Santiago cake. That was one difference in the Portuguese camino and the French camino that we did last year. We had Santiago cake almost on a daily basis. This we had today as samples and for dinner was the first we have had since we have been walking. ,The first thing they brought out was a huge bowl of soup and ladled it into our bowls. This time it was some kind of seafood or fish soup. Once again very good. For our main dish we had chicken and potatoes. It was all very good.
After dinner we walked around a little and then headed back to the room. It has been a fun, fulfilling day knowing that we are done with the Camino. Our next adventure will start tomorrow.
Day 27 September 21 Santiago
This is the final blog post for the Portuguese camino trip. We got up around
8:00 this morning and went straight to breakfast. We stayed here last year and remembered how good it was. We actually had boiled eggs, for which Larry was very grateful. Then it had at least twenty-five other items that were delicious. It had our muesli that we love, great fruit and all the coffee we wanted. After that we headed to the room to get packed and listen to our video from Bob Goff that our small group is doing this semester. We are gone, but are trying to stay up with them so we will not be completely lost when we get back. Thank you, Suzanne for doing this. Don’t know if you are reading the blog, but just in case.
After that we just took our time. Checkout is not until 12:00 and we are not in any hurry to get out in the rain. We have nine hours before our plane leaves and we are just going to walk around town and revisit some old places and see some new things also. We will eat a late lunch and head for the plane. Our hotel will keep our bags so we will not have to carry them.
We start to the lobby and see a huge line of people, mostly backpackers lined up to get on the bus to the airport. The bus comes every 45 minutes, and that is one reason we wanted to stay at the Universal, because of the convenience of walking from the door with our packs to the bus. When we saw the pouring rain and the bus, I looked at Larry and said, why don’t we just go on to the airport? It was not a tough decision. The older we get the worse we hate getting wet in the rain. So, the next question was— is there room on the bus? We decided to chance it. It held a lot more than we thought. After we got on there were still maybe ten seats. But as we sat there, they all filled up, and then they started packing them down the aisle. If that was not bad enough, we made several stops along the way and now we are like sardines. We estimated a hundred people. Is there a limit???
Along the way, we see backpackers headed into Santiago. It is a shame they are having to walk in, in the rain on their last day to the Cathedral. But they are going fast. We remember the day we walked in. We were hoofing it. Remember, I told you—with everything, including stopping for breaks, eating lunch and visiting, we averaged two miles an hour. On our last day we were averaging 4-5 miles an hour. Stopping was not on our agenda on that day. We were cruising! And crying the whole time. It was such an emotional ending to the end of a 500 mile journey. Then there is the picture taking and I could just envision them standing there trying to take pictures in front of the Cathedral in the poring rain. So, my heart went out to them. But it is still the thrill of a lifetime.
We arrived at the airport waiting for a plane to Rome. It is a very busy place. There are lots of backpackers heading to all parts of the world. Larry
and I just wonder what kind of money the Camino brings into this area. It varies depending on the time of the year, but there are days that they will give out as many as 3000 certificates to pilgrims. This is a slower time of the year, but when we finished last year in late October, there were over 500 who came in that day. We love the airport here. It caters to the pilgrims with all kind of special signage and displays. I don’t know how we are going to love it after bring here nine hours. Haha
So now just a little reflection on our trip as a whole. I have expressed my feelings all along, but I want to look at the overall trip and tell how I feel. This is my view only—I’ll ask Larry what he thinks in a minute.
If I had it to do over, I would have started at Porto, and traveled the central route all the way to Santiago. This would have been twelve whole days of total walking, and would have resembled the Camino we did last year. Then I would have taken the train to visit all the places that we visited along the coast. Taking the total coast route was a disaster in my opinion because it was not marked and had no alburges. That is just part of the camino experience. But we broke it up and walked a day, train rode a day, walked a day, etc. I just could not get into a good rhythm and every day was a decision day. I’m more of an “I want to know where I am going and how am I going to get there person”. When I can’t be in control, I do better to say, “Larry you plan it and I am along for the ride”. But Larry felt he had to bring me in on all decisions, and how was I to know what I wanted to do?
I know at this point I have no regrets. Every person’s camino is just that—-their camino. We have our story to tell and remember. Well, maybe I do have one little regret. When the fellow travelers are doing their own thing with the choice of three paths, we just made very few connections along the way. We have true friends from the last Camino that we keep in touch with on facebook. That has been a real joy to us. So I will miss that.
But we experienced a great thrill last night. One of our friends from last year is this week starting the same journey again this year. On one of his posts, Marcos, from Italy responded. I remembered him from our trip, so I responded and told him we were leaving for Italy today. He told us where he lived, so we are going to try our best in this next few whirlwind days to connect with him for dinner. Now that is what the camino is all about.
Let’s hope it happens!!
I asked Larry his opinion and he just said, “I’m good!!” So that is that!!!
Well maybe I do have something to reflect on. I agree with Dereatha that we needed to start in Porto and walk straight into Santiago on the camino central. Afterward we should have trained backwards to Vigo and spent the night. Then we should have trained to Tomar and spent a night. Afterward we should have walked a little along the coast back toward Porto. Then we should have trained to Lisbon and spent a couple of days. It would have fit a lot better than what we did. From there we could have flown to Italy. Oh well I am glad that we did it. It is just that it didn’t have the adventurous feel of walking the French Way last year.
Derethea
This is a wonderful blog. I can just sense being on your walk. I’d love to do this but Steve is not interested. 🙁
Many wives walk alone. But I could not stand to not be able to share it with my love.
I’ve enjoyed your blog of this Camino walk, every ‘step’ of the way. So sorry about the heat. It has been almost unbearable here in Birmingham.
When I read your blog, I imagine I am reading a chapter book with my favorite female character. I look forward to seeing what you encounter each day.
Love you both and I’m praying for you.
Julia
Thanks Julia, you are a special friend that I can always count on for prayers. It cooled off for a while, but back up to 90 today. But we are not walking, so it is fine. Supposed to be cooling down tomorrow.
Just prayed for God’s blessing and protection for your final Camino days. I hope and pray your hip is holding up. Your kitty friend may want to follow you. 🐱
Julia
It was strange. the hip pain only lasted a day and a half. I went from a severe limp to straight walking PTL
Lol
Whatever possessed that woman to start singing at 10pm?? She must have wanted a donation!!
I would have donated some ‘spicy’ words for her to be quiet.
I have loved reading the blog. Hope your journey continues well. Love and prayers
Julia
I was glad they did not speak English because when she was hollaring at us about how to open the door, I said very loudly–What idiot locks twp couples in a room together!!! HAHA