Camiño Portugués

Things are always better in the sunshine.

What a beautiful, beautiful day we had today. I felt almost like a fraud not having to put on a poncho as we started our walk.
We left Pontevedra earlier than yesterday, with a quick stop for a coffee and orange juice and toast before crossing the river. Pontevedra is a really pretty town, once you ignore the urban, industrial side we came in by. And people were lovely, kindly pointing walkers in the right direction. Maybe it was kindness, or maybe they just want people to be on their way, so that the locals can have their town back to themselves between 9am and 3pm, when people start trickling back in.
The number of walkers today was astounding. I know at the moment, Santiago is registering about 3000 arrivals per day, so it stands to reason that as we get closer to our goal and paths merge, that the number of walkers will grow. But it’s significant enough that almost 5km out of Pontevedra, as we walked through Alba, a woman pulled her car over and asked if there was an albergue nearby, as there so many pilgrims. I told her that no, these people were all walking from Pontevedra. She was shocked to see so many in one go.
We compared the pilgrims today to the walkers we see in zombie apocalypse movies - people from various backgrounds, all walking in the same direction, dead eyed with exhaustion sometimes… just repeating “Buen Camino” on a loop, or ¿tiene sello?, having the same conversations with every new person we meet - “where did you start?”, “are you ok?”, “thank god the rain has stopped!”. And when we tired of the small talk, we politely wish them “Buen Camino” and walk a little faster.

We’ve actually had another lovely day today. There were roads, and forests, and coffee stops, and most importantly there was “us”. I laughed so hard at Paul offering a little prayer (shalom!) as I tied a ribbon to a shrine of sorts, that I had to explain to another walker that we weren’t being disrespectful- it was just a line from a sitcom. He looked at us as if we were crazy.

On reaching Caldas - a very slow last 5km as I appear to have developed shin splints - we were amazed at how great our accommodation for tonight is. It even has a pool! Not that we used it, because I’d actually booked us in to one of the local thermal pools, followed by a massage. Paul was understandably concerned when he saw the place - looked like some east European sanatorium, where they would beat us with birch branches followed by cold water hose downs!
The obligatory chemist stop for painkillers, dinner, a quick walk around town, and a beer by the pool, and now we’re in bed and excited about tomorrow. For tomorrow we take a detour and do part of the Camino by boat!!

To read Paul’s take on the day go to https://findpenguins.com/paulh

Saw lots of cats and dogs, but none wanted petting.もっと詳しく