Camino Torres to Braga

Well, I haven’t been too good about keeping up this record of my trip, but I thought I better throw a few things in before I forget them all!

The day’s walk from Caldas das Taipas to Braga was pretty interesting. We started out on asphalt and cobblestone, then started a long ascent up what seemed like a mountain (OK, hill) that would then descend into Braga.

After we climbed up some paths that looked like roiling rivers of stone, we then walked up through some eucalyptus forests. Then we finally thought we were getting close to where the path would descend to Braga. We broke out of the woods and we were suddenly confronted by a crowd of people watching racing cars that were going round and round on a loop of the highway that we were supposed to cross. It was obvious that there would be no crossing that road to find our path down! We asked anyway, but were told that the road was completely blocked off for the next two days for this big race. The officials there seemed to know nothing about the Camino de Santiago, and basically told us the only way to get out of there was to find a path and walk. So we had to either walk back the way we came (away from Braga) or find a new path down to Braga.

Roel noticed some four-wheel-drive trucks that were parked outside the race area and asked the drivers how they had come up. They told him they had come from Braga on a rough trail so we decided to follow the truck tracks back down. Even so, we took off on a couple of false starts and had to backtrack, but eventually found our way back to Braga going down some steep muddy trails that were full of brambles trying to trip us up.

When we arrived in Braga we found Connie waiting for us in the apartment that we had reserved for two nights, she had taken the taxi that day due to her leg issue.Read more