On the Camino again
This time I planned a group trip, originally for my neighbor Beth, and then I invited Dr. Rosamaria Murillo, CEO of El Buen Samaritano, to join us… Three ladies of a certain age undertaking the Camino de Santiago from Porto. Unfortunately an accidental injury has sidelined Beth. Rosamaria will be joining me on Monday, so I’m solo for a few days.
I left Porto at 6:45 this morning headed up the coastal path, the same way Rich and I traveled a few years ago. I had forgotten what a madhouse Porto is! And so many hills. I think I walked about 8 miles yesterday just in Porto.
My phone camera is kind of broken, so I am getting mostly out of focus shots. Isn’t that lovely? I’m hoping this photo leaving Porto along the Douro river looks good.
Misfortune struck about 30 mins into my walk when one of my poles broke. I brought my old favorite purple poles and seems like that was not a good idea. I’ve picked up a “leftover” pole at my hostel in LaBruge, so tomorrow I hope to be more comfortable.
So far I’ve met a lot of pilgrims, even a neighbor from one block away in Austin, several other Austinites, Canadians, Koreans, Aussies, etc. Most of them I’m sure I’ll never see again since I will head inland tomorrow to the Central Portuguese route.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day, beautifully sunny with a slight breeze. So sorry I couldn’t share it with Beth and Rosamaria.
Done!
We arrived this morning at 10 am, among the first 200 pilgrims. Looking forward to going home tomorrow! 310 km (192 miles) from Oviedo. (Tristan says he is glad he did not look at the km markings at the beginning!)
Tonight we sleep in a private room, alone, after 13 days of hostels. No bunk beds.
Tristan feels like it was harder to form friendships on this Camino. Maybe because there were not as many English speakers, and just fewer people over all. We had a lot of Spaniards, Germans, Asians. We were the only 2 Americans in our cohort.
Sadly we have not found one of our favorite companions today, Aija, from Latvia. It would have been nice to say goodbye.
We’re 10km from Santiago
Yesterday our path joined with the French Way. The separate Camino Primitivo way is over. It was a somewhat tedious 20km to Melide where we joined the hordes of other pilgrims. I really disliked the place we stayed the night before- one of the worst hostels, not because the owners didn’t try, but the building just wasn’t designed to be a hostel and the hamlet was in the back of beyond. However, we had a fabulous lunch in Melide – pepperoni pizza (real pepperoni, not chorizo masquerading as pepperoni), beer and pimientos de padron.
We had a several choices of where to stop yesterday, but we were going to need at least one longer day to make Santiago in 13 days. We ended up going an extra 11km to make the fabulous public hostel in Ribadiso de Baixo. The cold river bath for our feet and the amazing facilities were totally worth the foot pain.
Today we immediately hit huge crowds of pilgrims after breakfast. Luckily we were able to pass most of them to get a sense of peace again. We again decided to push hard and we walked an extra 10km to make our day tomorrow nice. We should be hours ahead of the crowds and have a nice amount of time for our only day in Santiago before we leave Spain.
A Party in Lugo
We arrived to the beautiful UNESCO heritage site of the walled city of Lugo to find the old city teaming with cultural celebrations for the National Day of Spain. What luck to hit another festival! We don’t really have great photos. I didn’t want to be rude about photographing everyone’s costumes. Lots of bagpipes competing from square to square and fun dancing. We even encountered a live concert and fire dancers.
We should have spent a rest day exploring Lugo. I will need to come back some day.
We have about 75km left to Santiago. Tomorrow will be along day, over 30km as we join the French route and the separate Primitivo route ends.
A Brutal Goodbye to the Mountains
I couldn’t get any image to upload yesterday, so here is the belated report. Actually, the day just needs to be forgotten. Two near-vertical extended ascents left me completely drained. We had hoped to walk 28 km but had to stop at 20 and spent the evening in a rather depressing place called O Cádavo.
Tristan had this dish Friday night. Pigs ears. He reports it was the most disgusting thing he has ever eaten. Last night we walked out of a restaurant without ordering after finding both pig ears and pig nose 🐽 on the dinner menu. Needless to say we are rather tired of rural cuisine.
Woah, we’re halfway there, Woah-oh, livin’ on a prayer
Unbelievable skies awaited us this morning. This Camino is so beautiful. It’s also so, so tough. The morning started with a 7km climb to El Acebo peak, the dividing boundary with Galicia. We have officially left Asturias behind!
We have very tired legs, worked out lungs and my left big toe has a scary blister. But we’ve got our sights on Lugo in 2 days and Santiago is on the horizon.
A Pyrenean Descent
We left a lovely family-run hostel in the village of La Mesa at about 7:30 a.m. into dense fog. It was super cool. We could hear the whomp-whomp of wind turbines as we passed underneath but couldn’t see them at all.
Fellow pilgrim Aija from Latvia took some photos of us on the extreme descent down to the Salime reservoir. I think it was about 2 hours of steep switchbacks over slate/phyllite to reach the dam.
We walked a very hard 20 km total and opted for another family hostel in an old stone house in a tiny hamlet.
Tristan got creative with photos of his evening beverage. 😉
Los Hospitales route exceeds expectations!
Yesterday we did the iconic Camino Primitivo stage “Los Hospitales”, named for the ruins of 3 pilgrim hospitals located atop the mountain ridge tops. The threatening rain had disappeared from our forecast and we lucked out with another gorgeous sunny day.
The climb up to the top of the mountains was tough! The toughest I’ve ever done, despite what the nice German ~70-year-old Francesca told us on her way up for the third time. It was worth it!
Gorgeous day
Early departure this Tuesday morning to make up for yesterday. Tristan was pack-less so he was leaving me in the dust. Again, we started the day with a big climb but this time it was more gradual and with stunning views of the mountains. A very odoriferous day. These Asturian cattle are stinky! I keep wondering how they don’t fall off the hillsides.
My heart rate on the climbs was, like, 140! After our big ascent we had a big descent (yay old knees) and unfortunately a big stretch of walking along a highway, which kind of ruined the high-mountain-pasture-nature vibe.
We’re staying at a fabulous hostel on the mountainside, at the foot of the Camino, in prep for an iconic stage tomorrow.
We’ll go over the hospitales route (not to be attempted in bad weather) with epic views. We should just beat the drizzle that is expected?
Day 3, the day your body says ‘Hey!’
Day 3 is always one of the worst Camino days, when your body questions what was wrong with having a vacation at the beach. We had a hard time getting going. Tristan’s entire body was sore and we made very slow progress until about 1:30 when we were forced to start booking it.
We did finally arrive at our destination of Tineo. This had looked like a easy day but really kicked our butts, so Tristan will be shipping his backpack for a day or two to give his sore shoulder a rest.
We met a very nice German woman when we stopped for a beer. She is walking the high pass of Los Hospitales on Wednesday using the same route and accommodations as us. She assures us it’s not that hard! I hope she is right.