El Camino Portugues

Today’s route had a review of 1 star starting with ‘quite boring’. While it was mostly along dirt and asphalt, I truly hope the review is an accurate comparison to other routes because it actually was a gorgeous walk. A well deserved break too at only 12 miles.

The day began in chill and fog through the outskirts of Franca de Xira where it seems like the local Sunday morning thing to do is cycle or jog because I must have passed at least 300 people doing either in the first mile. As the sunlight finally broke through around midday, I rested for a while beneath a truly towering highway bridge when compared to walking entirely through flat farmland for the 5 miles prior.

As I continued on, I met up with a pilgrim named Jenny (pretty sure) from South Korea who spoke no Portuguese, very little English and who was on her fifth Camino. She had stopped at what seemed like the end of the path as there was a fence on all sides except from where we’d came. I’d gotten a recommendation yesterday to use the Camino Portuguese map on AllTrails so I pulled that out to look and it marked the path as continuing straight but on the railway line. We walked closer towards the rural wire-mesh fence bordering the rails and sure enough someone had cut through part of it and placed a blue and gold arrow indicating the way. There was a small path that we followed together just far enough away from the tracks to feel safe. Eventually, we approached a railway station. We tried to navigate around the station but it was completely fenced off by way of the tracks. Probably to prevent people from getting on to the tracks in the first place.

Really the only option was to scale the platform from the tracks side. It was maybe 4 ft off the ground so I threw my pack over the top, grabbed on to a safety rail for would-be passengers and hoisted myself up. (Thank you rock-climbing gym). Jenny was having a little more trouble with the hoisting bit. So I turned around to offer a hand which I think was really more of a motivator than actual assistance.

As we were both strapping back into our packs, an automated voice sounded followed several seconds later by the blaring of a horn and a powerful rush of wind as a bullet train raced passed us on the very tracks that’d we’d been standing on. As it passed, we both just stared at each other with eyes wide and mouths completely open while also half laughing in what turns out to be the very universal expression of “Holy crap I’m glad we both survived”.

As the shook faded away and relief rolled in, the sky seemed more blue and the birds more chirpy. We exited the station to again see the golden scallop shell of the Camino indicating that we had somehow in fact taken the correct way.

We walked together for maybe another half and then I went on ahead. I took a selfie and the road and you can see Jenny (pretty sure) as a small speck behind me if you look hard.Read more