If not, why then, then this parting was well made
I have bid farewell to Jacques. I decided to break the long day into two: he has continued to Recondela; I am stopping at O Porrino. It is hard to part with the friends you become close to on the Camino, and we lingered over a couple of beers before going our separate ways. I wish him well.
And speaking of friends, I was idling my time away in the Wifi room here at the hostel in Porrino, when the hospitalier hurried up the stairs and hurled a string of Spanish at me. "Amigos" was the only word I caught. I followed her to find that the East Anglians were asking for me. They had seen me in town and had tracked me me down. I look forward to running into them tomorrow.
It was a quiet Sunday morning as we left the hostel in Valenca, and crossed the bridge into Tui in Spain. Some pilgrims had stayed on the Portugese side of the border; others had crossed the river; but by now they were all on the road, from both the central and coastal caminos, the reds and blues and greens of their pack covers strung out in front and behind.
At a small town just out of Tui, on a large sheet of canvas draped across the fence of a school, I noticed a very strange slogan, in English:
We are what we are, not what we wanna (sic) be
Not much point in going to school, then. But there must be some other explanation for this strange poster.
We spent much of the morning walking through a park. I noticed that here the Aussie immigrant was no longer sticking to its enclave but living in harmony with the indigenous population. (See photo above.)
Along the way we met a man taking his sheep for a walk. Like all sheep they were trying to go astray, but he managed to keep them under control.
Five or six kilometres out of Porrino, we had to choose between the traditional way into town or a more scenic but longer variant along a river bank. Short of time, we chose the shorter route. A bad choice: four kilometres without a bend, factories and wharehouses to the left, factories and wharehouses to the right, industry without end, for ever and ever.
Walking itself isn't a very enjoyable activity. It's the things that go with it that give pleasure: the song of the birds, the sound of the surf, the smell of the sea, the touch of the breeze, the green of the fields, and above all, variety and surprise. Without these, all you can do is put your head down and walk like an automaton. And compose fragments for Palgrave's Golden Treasury of Doggerel, or the Oxford Book of Excruciating Verse.
I decided to stay at the private hostel, the Albergue Carmino Portuguese, at Portillo. For 10€ rather than 5€ or 6€, you can enjoy a little luxury. Well, I did not find it in the showers, always among the criteria for passing judgement on an albergue. Certainly, I was able to have a two-handed shower, for the nozzle remained on its fixture on the wall above me, but the tap was a button on the wall which, once pressed, provided a minute's worth of water. This is not usually a problem, because you can lean against it while showering and ensure a continuous flow. But the water was neither hot nor cold: it was warm enough to be endurable, but not enough to be enjoyable. We weren't going to linger in our showers and waste water.
No, the luxury was not in the showers but in the dorms which resembled rows of storage lockers, one on top of the other, each containing a double bed with sheets and a curtain across the front to ensure privacy, and within, a little reading lamp and a plug for charging the devices. And, of course, there was Wifi. Well worth the extra four or five euros!
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