We just can't stay away. This time we are going on the Camino Portugués from Porto, Portugal, to Santiago, Spain, then on the Camino Finisterre to Muxia. Our first real post should be on April 14.

Here is a link to a Google map of our route. The map shows all places where we might stay.

In Spain the common greeting on the Camino is Buen Camino. In Portugal we'll need to say Bom Caminho. (Pronounced very different than the Spanish. Something like Bo Cuh-MEEN-yoo, with a very nasal Bo.)

The coastal Camino goes along the Porto beach. We start tomorrow just beyond this.

We walked on this lovely boardwalk the whole 16 km today. Nice to walk on and away from the road.

Three Korean women. Other man is from Maine. Woman on right is from Holland.

Post by Wynette: We are staying at Casa de Fernanda tonight. What a wonderful place. About 20 pilgrims staying here. We had reserved a private room. Turned out our room had places for 3 people to sleep. Fernanda was having to turn people away so we told her she could put someone in our room with us. She ended up moving us into a double room in her house and giving our room to 3 women. She is feeding all of us dinner tonight. Based on the appetizers she has served already it is going to be delicious.

Some young Korean women stopped by briefly and asked those of us hanging out on Fernanda's patio for a photo. We had fun posing for/with them.

A few people will be sleeping outdoors on this couch on this patio tonight. This is a popular place.

The group room at Casa de Fernanda

Walking the Camino involves a lot of thinking about things. And the thinking often goes back to why you are walking and one way to approach that is to consider what is a "pilgrim".

Let's start with a "typical" pilgrim. Most pilgrims walk about 15 miles (25 km) a day. There are many Camino guides in many languages and they all divide the Camino into "stages". In pretty much all the books, stages are 12 to 22 miles, averages around 15 miles. So that is what most pilgrims walk each day. It also seems to be a good distance for a normally healthy person to walk. Brierley talks about three speeds, low, medium, high as 3, 4 or 5 km per hour. So you are walking from 5 to 8 hours a day. You typically start early 6-8 am and everyone takes breaks so you arrive from 1 pm to 5 pm.

A typical pilgrim carries all their own stuff in their pack so are carrying 15-25 pounds in their pack. They stay in albergues, communicate dorms with 4 to 30 beds in a room. Albergues cost from 5-15 euros a night and a pilgrim's "menu" costs 7-10 euros so you can go pretty cheaply.

Those are the externalities of being a pilgrim and they shape the internalities, if that is a word, my spell checker doesn't think so.

My feeling from watching pilgrims and reading dozens of books by pilgrims is that the social aspect is the main thing pilgrims want to get out of their Camino. Since everyone is on the same walk and going the same way at the about the same speed, you form lots of trail friendships. You see the same people over and over again and that is very satisfying. There is always lots to talk about because you are all walking the same trail and staying in the same placed and eating at the same places. You talk about these things and things that happen on the trail and where you are from. Interestingly, there is little talk about jobs or what people do. Everything is focused on the Camino.

Of course, many pilgrims have religious purposes also. We have only met a few so we don't know much about this but it is a significant number of people.

Many people walk the Camino after a loss of some sort. A loved one dies, a divorce, a cancer diagnosis. It gives them a way to process the grief.

Another group goes for "spiritual" purposes. We might say "philosophical" purposes. You think about your life and your goals and what you should be doing and how you should be relating to people. It is pretty much impossible to do a Camino without thinking about these things and that is one of the great things about it.

The Camino has the usual aspects of travel. Your main concerns are where you will eat, where you will sleep and what you will see each day. It is 'time out of time". You do not think much about what is going on back home, you just concentrate on the trip.

The Camino is an extreme version of this. You pretty much always stay in the albergue that is there when you are done walking. What you do all day is walk, and at the end of the walk you do your laundry and talk to the other pilgrims. Often there is only one or a few places to eat and you just get the pilgrim's menu. Or you get a group together and make a communal meal in the albergue kitchen. So there is little to think about in finding places to sleep and eat.

Pilgrims do very little sightseeing as such. The Camino goes through nice areas but not typically by major tourist attractions, that is not the point of the Camino, but you still see lots of things. You see the daily life of the people. You walk by their houses and gardens. You see then going about their daily life.

While walking you have these wonderful yellow arrows, beloved by all pilgrims. You don't really need a map or guidebook, you just follow the arrows. It is mindless in a good way in that your mind is free to think about other things.

So the Camino reduces travel to its essence, a time for contemplation and to think about your place in the world. This is the wonderful thing about the Camino.

We are typical pilgrims in some ways and not others. Because of foot issues it is pretty much impossible for us to walk 15 miles a day. On our first Camino we averaged 11 miles a day and went 15 miles in several days, but the cost was high and Wynette ended up with a stress fracture. We have decided that 7-9 miles a day is just right for us, about half speed. We can do this comfortably.

One result is that we do not have the same social interactions as a typical pilgrim. We see people for a day or two and then never again because they are miles beyond us. Luckily we tend towards introversion and, while we enjoy social interaction, too much can be tiring. The amount we get going about 8 miles a day seems right for us.

There is also a big difference between going as a couple and going as an individual. There are lots of pilgrims who walk alone, I would guess at least 50% and that is counting couple as two people. Couples don't tend to interact as much as individuals.

So we have found a Camino style that is good for us. There is a common expression that all pilgrims give at least lip service to: "Everyone walks their own Camino". Still, people are often surprised at how short our daily walks are and it catches them off guard. The first "Camino question" asked when you meet someone is "Where are you from?" Next is "Where did you start?" For the Portuguese Camino that is Lisbon for a few but overwhelmingly it is Porto. The third is "Where did you start today?" When we answer some place that is only 6-7 miles away everyone seems surprised and is sure they misheard. Then they realize we only went that far and they switch to "everyone walks their own Camino" mode and are quick to make it clear they don't disapprove at all. Maybe we are a little sensitive about it.

But it works for us and, as I am sure you have heard, "everyone walks their own Camino", or before the singular "they" became okay "everyone walks his or her own Camino" or before that "everyone walks his own Camino".

One more aspect of this is who is a "true pilgrim". Everyone according to "everyone walks their own Camino" but there are tour groups that come in in buses and walk 3-5 miles and then are deposited at their hotel where their luggage is waiting and they do this for 8-10 days. I think I can safely say that almost all typical pilgrims would look down on these people and feel they were not "true pilgrims". There are several services that will carry your bags between places so you only need to carry a day pack. Many people do not consider them "true pilgrims" either but it allows a much wider range of people to walk the Camino. This form of walking is the norm on the extensive walking trails in England and no one gives it a second thought. For ourselves we like to carry our stuff and part of the fun of planning is to get our the spreadsheet and scale and cut down the weight to the bare minimum.

And then there are the walkers of the "Way-slow Way", Charlie and Wynette, who feel they are true pilgrims.

We stayed at a really nice albergue last night. It was 14 euros each but we got towels, breakfast, colorful sheets and a comfy, soft quilt in a pretty room for just four people. The hospitilier was helpful and friendly. We liked the place a lot.

Here is an album of all 11 photos we have of it.

https://goo.gl/photos/ag61qyNxHAegcowp7

... have fallen from the camelia bush. And many yet to fall...



(post by Wynette)

Pilgrims become more colorful in the rain with their rain ponchos.

Post by Wynette:

The first time we walked the Camino (Spring 2013), when we got to Galicia, we started seeing these "narrow elevated structures" as Bob Tomlinson described them in a comment to one of our earlier posts.  We had no idea what they were but we kept seeing more and more of them.  Now, after three caminos, we've probably seen more than a thousand.  I'm not sure but I think they are unique to this part of the world. We found out,  eventually,  that they are for storing grain.  The bottom is such that rodents can't get in and there are usually slats or air holes on the sides for circulation.  In Galicia,  they almost always have a cross on top so they look like little churches.  We saw some in northern Portugal as well but those rarely had crosses,  if any.

It seems nearly every family home or farm in the small villages and countryside has one.

We've seen cute little replicas of them as mail boxes or toys. This is in the dining room of our albergue tonight:



After Bob asked what they were, we started taking more photos of them.  Here are photos of those we've taken so far, but a tiny percentage of the horreros we have seen:

https://goo.gl/photos/n7ExWgSTTM4LLFxa9

Here is a Wikipedia article.

From Estorde to Frixe. I love the name, which I pronounce like Fricksy but apparently many Spanish speaking people do not agree. Opinions differ. We stayed at a very nice casa rural, not frequented by pilgrims it seems. More on Casa Ceferinos later.