Author: Wynette

I can’t think of too much to blog about this evening so thought I would post a few photos that I like. Some of these go back a few days.

The pilgrim ahead of Charlie in the above photo was a very nice young woman from Slovakia. She was friendly when she was walking beside us and we struck up a conversation. When we exchanged details about where we were from I said “New Mexico” and she misunderstood and thought I said “Mexico” and assumed I spoke Spanish. She was excited because she wanted to practice her Spanish. She said she hadn’t been able to use it much in Portugal. We chatted a bit in Spanish and somehow she finally figured out that we were from the US, not Mexico. At one point she said “I really admire you walking the Camino at your age.” (We hadn’t talked about how old we were.) Not long after that, she said her goodbyes and sped ahead. I guess this old woman was a little too slow for her. I got a grin out of that exchange.

We stopped at a bar and I wanted something cold to drink. Found this in the cold case. A new one for me! It wasn’t bad. I wished it had more milk in it because it was a bit too sweet. Charlie said I should have asked the person tending the bar for some milk to add to it. I often ask for more milk in my coffee. But I felt rather shy about asking for more milk in my apple juice.

Most of the places we’ve stopped at have been clearly beach restaurants. But this one was a funky old-fashioned bar, my favorite kind, a block or two off the boardwalk. There weren’t as many places to stop today so we were glad we found this one.

You can probably tell from the above photo we aren’t roughing it too much. We are staying in a place called Home of Pilgrims. It’s a large house that once was a private home. There are a mixture of private rooms, shared rooms, and one large dormitory room with 6 or 8 beds. Probably about 20 people in all. We have one of the private rooms with private bath so can’t complain. It’ll be fun to run into the other pilgrims at dinner in the large kitchen.

Seems strange to refer to ourselves as “pilgrims”. We are pretty much just on a walking holiday and that’s what the Camino Portuguese Coastal feels like, as opposed to our first Camino, the Camino Frances, which in many ways did feel like a spiritual pilgrimage.

I really liked this photo and am trying to think of a reason to post it. So, I’ll talk about the weather. Note that we had a really sunny day today. Weather forecast is for warm and quite a bit of sun the next few days. We might have to get some early starts to stay comfortable.

Tonight there wasn’t a desk or table in our hotel room or anywhere else in the hotel that we thought to look. So we are now sitting in a coffee bar. Charlie ordered a decaf. I ordered a little pastry. They are open till midnight. A quiet place. Not even any music, but there is fútbol on the tv (soccer).

Last night we blogged in the breakfast room. Our “hotel” was a large house that someone had converted into a B&B with six guest rooms of various sizes.

We arrived in Vigo, Spain, around 5:00 pm (Spain time) on Thursday. Despite lack of sleep, we managed to purchase bus tickets for the next day and Vodafone SIM cards for our phones. (Huge amount of fast data and unlimited phone calls for about $16 each for 4 weeks.) And then eat a pretty delicious Indian food feast. And then crash, finally. Friday morning we got on a bus and headed south for Porto, Portugal. About a 3 hour bus ride. We spent last night in Matosinhos, just north of Porto, and then started out walking today. My watch tells me we have walked 9.82 miles and 25,628 steps, so far, today. And only the equivalent of 10 flights of stairs. A very flat walk, totally along the ocean, 90% on boardwalks. About half of those flights of stairs, I think, have been in our B&B for the night, going up and down to our second floor room. Right now we are sitting at a large table on the lower floor doing our first blogs of this trip.

You can see from the photo that the weather has been nice. Cool, breezy. It started out cloudy and drizzly but cleared up early.

Our packs felt heavy walking. For the past couple of years we’ve hiked in the Sandia foothills near Albuquerque 2 or 3 times a week. That is a lot more up and down but not as far, but maybe our packs were not quite as heavy as today. We’ll get tougher soon, I’m sure.

I’m frustrated not being able to speak the language here in Portugal but I’m good at saying “Fala ingles?” (Do you speak English?) And almost everyone says “yes”. The Portuguese have been so kind and helpful.

The Madrid Airport is huge. My watch told me that we walked 2.4 miles while we were there. Some of that was on moving sidewalks where you feel you are flying. Most of that 2.4 miles was getting from our arrival gate to the departure gate for our next flight. That didn’t count the little train ride we took to change from the international terminal to the non-international terminal. The walking felt good after being cooped up on the plane for over 8 hours. But I’m always surprised how much walking one must do in the Madrid airport. I don’t remember seeing anyone who was in a wheel chair or being driven around. Maybe there are other ways for those who need help to go?