Azinhaga

The day started on a decent from Santarém which apparently first had a city there around the year 800 and was very important to the reconquista. The route led through a hole in an ally and then down a long and slippery set of cobblestones that could have been original to the city. Really felt like I was making a secret exit during a siege or something.

A lot of the day’s route was walking next to fields and vineyards on a dirt path that had become quite muddy because of the rain so it was slow going. I did get slightly turned around at one point, but it wasn’t terrible hard to find the way back to the correct path with how well everything is marked.

As a was approaching a small village, about 14 miles of only farmland) a man called out to me ‘Santiago?’ from the entryway to a very small building surrounding by large concrete basins in the ground. I walked over to him and said yes I was going to Santiago. He asked if I wanted water and waved me inside. I was pretty sure I could make it to the end of the day with the water I had, but still could’ve used a top off so I went around a railing and inside. We both tried our best to have an exchange, but it really was quite a challenging thing to day. I was offered both a Taxi and snack, the later of which I great fully obliged. He also showed me a spiral bound notebook he kept that had a lot of messages people had written him. I also made an entry (the last seemed to be from November). It seems like he offers snacks and water to quite a few pilgrims. I really only have a picture of the wastewater tank unfortunately to mark the moment. It was such a surprise and random act of kindness.Read more