Post by Wynette:
As we have talked about in a previous post, Charlie and I are spending eight days in Pontevedra, a city of about 80,000 south of Santiago. Pontevedra is on the Camino that goes from Lisbon, Portugal, to Santiago. We walked that Camino, starting in Porto, in 2016. Yesterday, we decided to walk this Camino for a few miles going out of Pontevedra.
We got up, got dressed (no breakfast or coffee) and headed out. Good to be out in the cool morning. We started seeing pilgrims immediately. In general, pilgrims like to get an early start, either to beat the heat or to get to their destination before others so they get the bed they want.
And almost immediately, I started missing being a pilgrim, going to Santiago. It’s not the same being on the Camino if you are just out for a hike and have to retrace your steps to get to your place for the night. I felt jealous of the many pilgrims that we saw. Not exactly logical.
About three miles out of town we heard a woman behind us say “Is that a Zia symbol I see?” Turned out it was a woman from Santa Fe. She had spotted my “American Pilgrims on the Camino, Albuquerque Chapter” patch that was on the flap of my backpack. We chatted a bit and it was clear the woman she was walking with (not from Santa Fe) wanted to chat more, but the Santa Fe woman was in a hurry. They were the only USA Americans we’ve met on this trip on the Camino. (We’re not counting the guy from Portland who now lives in Galicia.)
There was a bar nearby, a little off the Camino, so we decided to head there for breakfast and coffee. The woman tending the bar was so nice. She said she couldn’t make us fried eggs but she made us ham and cheese bocadillos with some delicious bread.
After that we headed back to Pontevedra. It was interesting walking backwards on the Camino. There were lots of pilgrims coming towards us. Everyone was friendly and many said “hola” or wished us a “buen Camino” but they usually looked at us quizzically like, “huh, you look like pilgrims but why are you walking that way?” No one actually voiced the question out loud. We couldn’t believe how many pilgrims we saw. Maybe over 100 total.
Did you spot anything interesting in the above photo? There was a woman carrying a young baby. Here is a close up:
Then shortly after that we passed a family with a young child. She was probably 11 or so. Another first for us, I think.
One more thing of note from the walk. We spotted this as we were getting back into Pontevedra:
Spain is such a funny country. The above pretty amazing sculpture was way up on top of somebody’s garage.
When I last trekked in Nepal (Annapurna circuit, including a pass at over 17,500 feet) there was a German couple carrying a toddler (not yet two). They hired an extra porter just to carry the child when they got tired. They had to turn back at some point when the child got the sniffles.
I can understand feeling the tug of wanting to be on the Camino again.
From your picture where there a lot of people walking, I wonder if that just gets kind of frustrating having so many people around on this beautiful walk? And many with their heads down and in a hurry to get to their next stop in order to get the choice beds.
Comment by Wynette: This might be the most pilgrims we’ve seen in such a short distance. I think this Portuguese Camino is becoming very popular. Luckily, on all the caminos, you see the most pilgrims in the last 100 km from Santiago. Many many people only do that distance. So, you can avoid the crowds by starting much further back, which, of course, means you walk further but we’re all for that as well. The Camino Ingles ended way too soon. The Camino Ingles (which we finished last week) doesn’t have nearly as many pilgrims as this one does. And, yes, it might a little too crowded. It doesn’t bother me too much and mostly I enjoy seeing the people, talking to a few of them. They are from all over the world and that makes it especially interesting.