Month: March 2022

On our walk this morning, in the tiny village of Airexe, we stopped in the bar in the above photo and ordered our first cafés con leche of the day. In most bars, when you order coffee, the cup shows the brand of coffee you are getting. I noticed the brand was Delta and remembered we’d had a cup of Delta coffee on our walk to Finesterre in 2014 and loved it and told the bartender we liked it and he pulled out the bag of coffee beans he used and it was Delta. So, this morning, I said to Charlie, I wonder if this will be as good.

It was! We were oohing and aahing. So rich, full of all kinds of flavors, but not at all harsh, very smooth. We couldn’t believe how good it was. There was no sign outside this bar advertising that they served Delta coffee, but sometimes you do see a sign. If you ever see a sign for Delta coffee, be sure to check it out. Of course, there are other factors such as how good the machine was that made the coffee and how good the barrista is. But, it’s definitely worth trying. The bartender back in 2014 told us Delta is a Portuguese brand. So, Ella and Grubb, I hope you get a chance to try some next month!

Well, it’s a drastic change. We had hoped to spend the rest of our time in Spain walking the Camino Francés and see how close we could get to Santiago at our slow pace. We were sitting at a sidewalk cafe yesterday afternoon in Portomarín drinking tea and decided it was time to reserve the next night’s lodging, hoping to find something about 6 miles down the trail. I have no idea why we were so optimistic since, as we’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, we are running into lots of closed hotels, albergues, etc. Well everything with private rooms was closed within 15 miles. There were a lot of places to call and everyone answered, but they either said they will open either April 1 or Semana Santa, the week before Easter. (They are answering because they are taking reservations for after they do open.) At that point we were getting discouraged and, I hate to admit, tired of dealing with it. We went back to our room and I started looking at holiday apartments and airbnbs in Muxía. We ended up reserving one for 5 nights, starting tomorrow. This morning, we took a taxi within 5 miles of Palas de Rei and then walked into Palas de Rei so we had one last walk on the Camino Francés, had a good tapas lunch and then caught a bus to Santiago where we are now. Tomorrow morning we’ll catch a bus to Muxía.

Muxía is a destination for lots of people who walk the Camino and want to keep going after they get to Santiago. (A surprising number of people do.) We walked there on our camino from Portugal in 2016. We really liked Muxía and felt that our time there was too short. It’s a small town of about 4700 people on a little península that juts into the Atlantic, about 45 miles from Santiago. If you saw “The Way” with Emelio Estevez and Martin Sheen (about the Camino, highly recommended), it’s where Martín Sheen takes his son’s ashes at the end of the movie.

So, we’ll still be on the Camino, just a different one. Well, really two different caminos: (1) Camino de Finistère y Muxía and (2) Camino dos Faros. So there will be lots of good hiking around there. Beautiful beaches. Good seafood. Sounds like a vacation, doesn’t it?!

Yesterday we walked into Portomarín. It’s a lovely little town with an interesting history. Back in the 1960s, someone decided to dam a river and flood a valley to build a reservoir. The village of Portomarín was in the valley. They moved several historic buildings from the town out of the valley and up on the hill above where the reservoir was to be. Brick by brick. One was the church in the photo above. They kept a map of where every brick was to go and then reassembled it using the map. They did the same with a number of other buildings, perhaps homes as well. It is said that when the reservoir is low, you can see the remains of the old stone buildings that did not get moved. To get into Portomarín on the Camino, you walk over a long bridge that spans the reservoir. It’s a beautiful lake. We saw some people fishing way below.

Another insightful comment by our stalwart commenter Henry got me to thinking about ways to walk the Camino. This is a follow up to an early post about the Camino.

The usual style of Camino walking is to walk about 15+ miles a day. When everyone does about the same distance each day you keep up with a group of people and see a lot of the same people each evening at the albergue. This promotes friendships and finding walking partners. People often talk about having a “Camino family”. This works well for people who can walk 15-20 miles a day and most people can do this so it remains the Camino standard.

But some people can’t walk that far, or don’t want to, or are walking with someone who doesn’t want to, or just want to take it slower. Wynette and I are in this group. On our first Camino we tried to walk the longer distances and Wynette came home with a stress fracture.

To avoid foot problems we have been walking radically shorter days than other pilgrims, more like 5-7 miles a day. We did three 10+ miles a day early on and that (and the cold weather) lead to our week hiatus. So we have the practice and now I am starting to see the theory behind our short-day style.

If you walk three five mile days you see the same things you see in one 15 mile day. And you notice more things because you are taking your time. And you get to stay in three towns instead of one and you have time and energy to look around the towns. We like to have our big meal in the middle of the day and short walking days allows that. We also like to get private rooms so we have a place to hang out and blog and read and do a lot of the things we like to do at home, except the next day we get to walk through wonderful Spanish countryside and eat Spanish food and stop frequently for our beloved cafe con leche.

This style only works for some people. You have to have more time. It costs more because of the extra days. But mainly you are not going to be part of the social life of the Camino. But for us it works and we are very happy with it.