Portuguese Coastal, Part of the Primitivo, Week in Vigo
WynChar Diary, April 25
Camino walking: O Cádavo to Castroverde, 5.1 miles in 2:49 hours, moving 2:07
7.16 total miles for the day per Wynette’s (probably-not-accurate) watch.
48 flights of stairs.
Elevation: up 525 feet, down 1027 feet, between 1864 and 2779 feet
We are slowly moving down in altitude
We like to walk 7-10 miles a day but often that is hard to do because places to stay are often not in the right places. We avoid the communal rooms of the albergues so that reduces the places we might stay. Another solution is to use taxis: walk as far as you want, get a taxi to the nearest place to stay, and take a taxi back to the same spot the next day. You walk every step, a good thing for purists but we have already established that we are not purists. This has its own problems: once you stop you have a call a taxi and wait for it to get to you. Also the taxi fares can add up.
Another solution is to just have some short days and that is what happened today. We had a taxi solution planned but decided to go with a short days, nice to have a little extra time to catch up. There were a few hills but that doesn’t bother if you are only walking five miles.
It was another beautiful day on the Primitivo, albeit short. The views are not as amazing as the ones higher but still very nice, more rolling hills than mountains, more farms. We walked through some little villages which we love to do. We walked past a few streams and enjoyed the sounds of running water, which we also love to do.
We did have a “cow incident”. We were walking along a trail, maybe 10 feet wide, with walls on both sides and we saw a line of cows ahead lumbering towards us. This is common enough on the Camino. But they were big, as cows tend to be, and there was no herder or herding dogs in sight. The cows were mostly on their right of the path (Do they walk on the left in England?) but some moved over at times. We moved past them carefully. After a few cows we saw the herder and dogs up ahead at the rear of the line. There were a few calves at the end also. The herder gave us a big smile and a “que tal?”. One of the dogs started tagging along with us and had to be called back to his duty.
Of course, cows are by and large gentle and harmless but in the Guardian I occasionally read of some poor English person seriously injured by cows. This is always in some unusual situation but it stays in your mind, especially if you are a city boy like me.
About Camino purists, or completists, we are not, but we don’t want to put that down in any way. If we had started younger I would definitely have wanted to do a Camino and walk every step. There is a satisfaction in that completion. A sense that you have accomplished something hard to do. We love to walk and we make some compromises so we can do it and still have fun. Up those steep hills today I was glad to be carrying 10 pounds instead of 25.
Another interesting thing we encountered today. The Camino turned left along a stream with a narrow path on one side between a high wall and the stream, another place I was glad I was not too heavy. The stream had a line of rocks in the middle. We were wondering what they were there for. My guess is that someone did it just for fun.
Looking back at the cows and herder and dogs after they passed usStones in the middle
2 thoughts on “WynChar Diary, April 25”
The cows probably wouldn’t bother you, but don’t forget the rule: never get between a mother and its calf/cub/fawn/…
If my Bayesian prior of a cow attack was p(0) instead of p(0.0000001) or if the cow’s behavior had shown a better understanding of single file and keep to the right I would have passed by them in complete equanimity.
The cows probably wouldn’t bother you, but don’t forget the rule: never get between a mother and its calf/cub/fawn/…
If my Bayesian prior of a cow attack was p(0) instead of p(0.0000001) or if the cow’s behavior had shown a better understanding of single file and keep to the right I would have passed by them in complete equanimity.