Day 9: Cobblestones and cornfields

27.1k👣 80Z🧡 !!!

Breakfast with the gang before setting off for Rates (pron. Rha-tez)
Left Martha & Tim around 9:30am to return to Caldas
Walked along the Roman aqueduct for quite a while
Through cornfields and villages with salamanders on the stone walls
Ready for a break around 11:30am, but no rest in sight, so we kept on walking.
Joe thought maps.me had identified a café not far off route around 1pm, so I asked a local (in Portuguese!!) who was just getting down from his truck if there was a store nearby, and he replied, yes, just keep left, go through town, etc. (First real convo in Português!!!)
We walked just a bit more towards town (keeping left as instructed) and decided to confirm what I understood of his reply 😅 with Google Maps, and we realized he was answering AS IF we had a car. 🤣🤣🤣
So we holed up at a little bus shelter with a narrow bench in the shade across from Marian shrine, and rested.
Ate some nuts; drank some mango juice.
After 20 min, we hobbled back to the Camino as indicated on the Wise Pilgrim app, and climbed up through a beautiful eucalyptus and Tasmanian blue gum tree forest with heather and gorse
Few cars, but they came with SPEED
Came down to the edge of Rates
Romanesque church from 1100 BCE
Chapel and pillory (!!!!) in Old.Town square

Wonderful hosts greeted us at Casa Mattos around 3:30pn. Perfect timing.
Used my Portuguese AGAIN (!!!) to communicate (minimally 💙)
The husband was born in this house
His family has been here for 4 generations
They have a small garden of grapes and make wine
They'll go to Fatuma for the Feast of th3 Assumption on 8 Dec
Most folks locally have been to Fatima
Not so much folks in their 20s or 30s, but they come back to the church when older
All of this in their garden where we hung the clothes we had washed after arriving and showering (Before that, I smelled BAD 🤪)
The wife used Google Translate by speaking into her tablet and having it translate into English. I was mostly able to respond in Portuguese
Met Angie from Dusseldorf, Germany, and invited her to join us for dinner at Macado's Bar in town (5 min away)
Wonderful dinner of mushroom risotto (me) and pizza (Joe) with sangria (Abby, Joe, and me)
Wonderful conversation with Angie
Signed the bar's guest book with an image of the Space Needle (I drew)and a peregrino with a shell around their neck (courtesy of Eric)
Angie was grateful not to have to think of what to write 🤣
Home and IN BED by 10!! Ideal.Baca lagi