Santiago to Porto

 

The weather gods had smiled on me during my walk. Not once did I have to don my rain gear. This morning, however, it was pouring.

I had booked a ticket to Porto Airport using the Trainline app, train to Vigo, and then bus to the airport.

A tip for anyone travelling out of Santiago by train. Had I arrived at what I thought was a comfortable 15 minutes early I would’ve missed it. It took me that long to get through the security queue. Strangely, though, I didn’t notice any security at the intermediate stops. I won’t make the obvious comment.

I chatted with a couple of Aussies from Sydney in the queue. It was good to speak Oz again. It was “Bugger this” and Bugger that” and “We would’ve been buggered if we hadn’t got here early.” They had walked from Porto as part of an organized tour. Would you do it again? I asked. No way. Too tired at the end of the day to bloody see anything.

Bilingualism is important in Galicia. On the screen in the railway coach it said:

Próxima estación Padron

Próxima estación Padron

I arrived at Vigo Guixar. And then I missed the bloody bus! I had assumed that it would be waiting at the train station, and it was, but not the one I arrived at. The bus station was next to Vigo Vialia station, across town. I had 20 minutes to make the connection, and saw the bus pulling away as I arrived. I should have looked more carefully at my ticket, but even so, had I run out of one station to get a taxi to the other, I would have been lucky to make it. That’s tip number 2. Check your ticket carefully.

But there was another bus at 5:30 pm, which I caught, and I’m now a guest at the Oporto Airport and Business Hotel. Very nice room and not too expensive. Tomorrow I will go into Porto.

Santiago de Compostela

I enjoy a leisurely breakfast at a cafe just outside the old town. Even at 9:30 a steady stream of pilgrims passes in front of me: young and old, singles, couples, groups, families, a group of schoolchildren, walking eagerly, pensively, determinedly.

I thought that on the Camino Portugués, women outnumbered men by about three to one. That was certainly the case in the albergues. Yesterday, as I drank my celebratory beer at a bar next to the hotel, and watched the incoming pilgrims from the Francés, I decided to do a little survey. In the course of my consumption of an cerveza grande, 24 women and 22 men passed by. But it may not have been an accurate count.

As I walk up to the cathedral I notice an inscription in the pavement written in many languages:

Europe was made on the pilgrim road to Santiago

Even today, perhaps the Camino counters the rising threat of right wing nationalism. I remember the words of Luca, a young Italian whom I met last year on the Camino Francés. Luca was effusive in his appreciation of the cross-cultural aspect of the Camino. “I meet so many people,” he said, “from different cultures, and they respect me, and I respect them.”

I know I am nearing the cathedral when I hear the piercing wail of the Galician pipes. I push through the tunnel to the square. Not many people yet but a familiar sight. A man throws his pack high in the air. Another positions his selfie stick carefully for a photo. A group of lads jump up and down and chant. Everywhere there are hugs, kisses, handshakes and even Biden fist bumps. And there is an exuberant muffled roar of pleasure and excitement.

I run into Doug and Nancy whom I’ve met a few times along the way since our first meeting at the Casa de Fernanda. Nice people from Oklahoma. I think I’ve inspired them to walk the Chemin du Puy. An Irishman asks me to take his photo with a very expensive camera. He takes ours in return. I had just finished telling Doug and Nancy that this was my last Camino, when the Irishman said how much he enjoyed the Camino Inglés. Hmm.

14. O Faramello to Santiago. 16 kms

 

There are some wonderful words in Spanish, including cerveza and café con leche. I learned a new one this morning.

About three kms before Santiago I came to a fork in the road. Both roads led to San Diego. Which one should I take? A Spanish pilgrim came up behind me. He pointed in one direction and rattled off some advice. I caught only one word. It was enough for me. Corto.

It was a fairly uneventful walk this morning. I kept hoping to arrive at a little village with a café for breakfast, but I had to wait seven or eight kms for that, and then gradually the strolls through the woods became shorter, and the peripheral villages began to dominate. One last stroll through the woods above, and then down a slope to a subway under the motorway and a steep climb up again, and on to the fork that  I mentioned. I was in the outskirts of the city.

It was then that I decided to use the map app to find my hotel. No problem. There it was. 3.75 km. Apple was leading me along nicely when a woman stopped me, assuming I was lost. She spoke a little English. Where are you going? Hotel Concheiros, I said. She stopped a couple of passers by and asked if they knew where it was. They didn’t. No wonder, there are hundreds of hotels in Santiago, and mine certainly wasn’t one of the better known. I kept protesting that I was fine, and that my phone would lead me, but she took my phone and try to follow its instructions. I thanked her profusely and proceeded on my way on the other side of the street. At the next intersection, I continued straight on. She shouted at me from across the street and beckoned me back. No, she said you should’ve gone left. She called some more strangers to convince me but of course they were quite bewildered. Eventually after further profuse thanks I managed to continue on my way. She really wanted to help.

Suddenly I was moving upstream against a flow of pilgrims. I realized where I was. These were pilgrims arriving from the Francés, the Norte, and the Primitivo. My hotel was on the camino coming in from the east, on the about a kilometre from the cathedral.

It’s a nice room. Very clean and white. And square, not oblong, like my room last year.

Tomorrow, I will visit the cathedral and the old town.

13. Villanova de Arousa to Pontecesures to O Faramello. (14 kms on foot)

“A cold coming we had of it”

Well, the boat trip was a bit of a disappointment. A pilgrims’ boat? I was kind of expecting a gentle chug, chug, chug, gently up the stream kind of boat, but no. Nor was it stone, or even wood, it was a fibre glass power boat racing along at 60 knots. Still, we did have to cover 25 kms. 

The “only fluvial maritime via crucis in the world” was a bit rich as well. It was not so much a “way” but a scattering of crosses on islands and headlands along the banks of the river. We stopped to look at some of them. They bore different configurations of the Holy Family, and I was amused by one I that would call “the leaning cross of Padron”.

I was glad to land at Pontecesures. To be fair, it was early morning, foggy, and cold, the one part of my Camino where I could have used a down jacket.

I walked a couple of kilometres into Padron. After a very nice omelet for breakfast, I walked beside a market staged between two rows of knobbly plane trees, one of which might have been the offspring of the cyclops and an ent.

And then one of those Camino moments. I was standing at a crossroads, in both senses, wondering whether to go on, when a smiling trio approached, two German girls (Sarah and Julia) and the mother (Martina) of one of them, whom I had met at the Albergue Alternativo, and then again the next night. They were going to an albergue, 12 kms on, so I decided to follow.

 

After leaving the highway the path passed through many windey villages. In one of them, a  millstone leaning against a wall made me appreciate the meaning of the saying. I wouldn’t want that around my neck.

My day ended with a lovely saunter through a traditional wood, oak and ash, creepers winding around every trunk, bracken ground cover, and then another stretch of the ancient road where the pilgrims trod. This is why I come back.

And here I must thank the German ladies. Dries, from the Alternativo, had recommended a private Albergue, €20, but they said no, the municipal Albergue looks better . And it was. And only €8.

It was managed by Brunhilda, or the Spanish equivalent. She was a big (can I say that?) woman, and formidable. Welcome, she said, all smiles and hugs. But you’d better obey orders. “Ladies, you can’t come up here until you’ve registered.” “Charles, you haven’t put your sheet on the bed!” But like all the Camino Brunhildas I’ve met, she had a big heart.

To misquote Kenneth Graham again, There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing, as downing a bottle or two of Estrella Galicia at the end of a long walk on a hot day. It was quite a steep climb up to the bar from the albergue, but later I drifted down.

12. Ribaduma to Villanova de Arousa. 17 kms.

 

 Villanova de Arousa

It was a noisy stay at the Hospedaje Rustico Os Castaños. From the time I arrived until nightfall, the comparative silence was shattered by sequences of explosive blasts. Was this a farmer shooting vermin with a shotgun? Or was there a shooting range nearby? Or perhaps people were celebrating a holiday with fireworks?

And these were not mere background noises: they were very loud explosions.

I twigged this morning when I set out once more on the Route of Stone and Water, not so much stone now, and a gentle brook rather than a rushing stream. The blasts began again and I realized that hese were explosive “scarecrows”, devices triggered by the movement of marauding birds and designed to protect the grapes or the crops. I had seen them in France on a previous camino.

The first part of the morning was an easy strolI along the brook, and thence the bank of a river.

Then I walked for a while through a built up area, the tedium broken only by an encounter with Tim from Ireland who drew me and a few others into a little chapel. It is the spiritual variant, he said. He and his wife(?) sang a little song, and then he gave a blessing and she gave a hug, and I moved on.

Then up into the hills, through the woods and into the vineyards.

From a high point I could see the ocean in the distance, and it was downhill from there, the sea breeze strengthening as I approached the coast.

I hoped this was my destination, but no, I walked for  three or four more kilometres around the shore, in front of a couple of resort villages, past a RV park with half the caravans in Spain, and on to the Port of Villanova de Arousa.

During one of the monotonous stretches, I reflected on a couple of items I had read in the news this morning, both concerning the banning or potential banning of books.

The first was a story about a girl in a Northern Ireland school feeling uncomfortable at the racist words in Of Mice and Men. Fair enough. Why would they teach it there anyway? Is there any book less relevant to Northern Ireland? I suppose it’s short and easy. Great Expectations might be a bit much.

The second was about the banning of the Bible in schools in Utah. What? I rubbed my eyes. Banning the Bible in American schools? Was it because of the Book of Revelations? Or the nasty bits about sodomites? No, it was because of “vulgarity”. 

I knew what they were talking about. There are some smutty bits in the Bible. I remember the kid sitting next to me in Scripture class seventy years ago pointing to the verse on page 444 of our King James Bible about the men who “drink their own piss and eat their own dung”. Early recycling! We sniggered. But I don’t think reading it did me any harm. I never fell into the practice myself.

I am grateful now for those Scripure classes. I was made to learn passages of the most beautiful Elizabethan English off by heart. “A certain man went down from Jerasulem to Jericho….” “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help….”

 But I digress.

I have settled in rather comfortably at the Pension Mar de Rosa, with my own bed in a kind of rec room. I am eating at a nearby bar. After two nights of pulpo I have decided to feast on its poor cousin, calamari.

I fill up on the bread, for tomorrow, before breakfast, I catch a boat at 7:30, following the path of St. James, whose remains were transported in a stone boat, Archimedes notwithstanding, to Padron. The name of the town comes from the Latin for “stone”.

11. Combarro to Ribaduma. 15 kms

 

If I seem little crazy today, it’s because the moon was shining on me last night through the open window. I spent a comfortable night at the Hotel Xeito (44€). There was a little misunderstanding (literally) but nothing too serious.

In the morning I observed an amazing scene. It was low tide, and on the sand and in the shallow water of the bay there must’ve been a hundred people or more searching for some kind of shellfish as they must have been doing since historic times. I took a last look at the fishermen’s village. Many of these houses were built as early as the 17th C. Notice the horreos in which they would have protected their vegetables and grain from the rats. With their fish and their vegetables and their grain, these seafaring villagers must have been self sufficient.

Speaking of horreos, I forgot to tell you yesterday about the other feature of the monastery at Poio. In the yard was the largest horreo in the world. It must have been 50 yards long.

I left the water and began to climb, a bugger of a climb, up the road, with very steep sections, fortunately followed sometimes by a levelling off.

About a quarter of the way up the climb was one of those little hospitality stands typical of the Camino. It was unattended, and relied for payment for drinks from the fridge on the goodwill of the pilgrims, quite different from the stands I had passed earlier along the Portugués, those little commercial enterprises selling, trinkets or offering to stamp your credential. Free Stamp said the sign, but you were expected to buy something or leave a donation. This morning was quite different. Someone was thinking about the pilgrims and not their own pocket. This variant is very much the Camino as it used to be.

Across the road was an old lady climbing some stairs, taking as long as it would take me to climb this hill. Old age cometh to us all.

The road steepened and wound up into the hills. Fortunately, it was a glorious day. This climb would be misery beyond measure in the rain. I was almost enjoying it! The road continued through a forest of gum trees, with bracken, yellow daisies, and fox gloves along the banks, and, of course, the little shrubby broad-leafed gum trees which hadn’t yet reached puberty. They grow like weeds.

Sorry to harp on about the gum trees, but they fascinate me. At first I thought they couldn’t have been planted because they were so close together, but this morning I noticed groups of young trees planted in rows. Perhaps further saplings then spring up between the rows. They really do grow like weeds.

I passed the municipal dog pound, and the silence was shattered. Dogs were running around in all directions. I saw my little dog Jala in there.

I wasn’t alone on the road this morning. A young fellow with a day pack raced by me at the speed of sound. I chatted with a young girl who had set out early this morning from Pontevedra. Another woman hurried by with 30 kms to go. No time to stop, she said. I conversed with a couple from the other side of Spain. “Viva Catalonia” were the only words I understood. A couple of horses came out from the woods to munch the grass at the side of the road. Their young goal followed, but seeing me, skittered away.

 At last I reached a plateau and began a slight descent. This was obviously logging country with plantations of eucalypts vying for supremacy with for plantations of pine. Huge piles of debris on the side of the road may have been waiting until it was safe to burn. Bracken and even the shrubby gum trees were taking over the scarred landscape left by the logging.

And then I made  sudden turn off the road, down a narrow path, and arrived at Armenteira. After a welcome coffee bar at the bar, too early for a beer, I paid a quick visit to the monastery, this time a convent. Nine nuns remained in this massive building. Yesterday at Poio, there were nine monks. Free entry but not many parts were open. I wandered around the cloister. Beautiful things, cloisters. The monks or nuns may have been cloistered within, but at times they were free to walk around the cloister and chat. 

 

It was one o’clock, so I decided to bypass the albergue and head for the next accommodation seven kms on. And then I began the Ruta de la piedra y del agua or should I say Ruta da Pedra e da auga in Galicia, the route of stone and water, so aptly named, for it included stony scrambles, stone steps, stone walls, and stone mills, all the while the water rushing alongside. Some of these mills were primitive sawmills: others would grind wheat to make flour. I must have walked downhill for a couple of hours along this idyllic way, a scramble at times, but eventually levelling out to a gentle path. For me, this was one of the most beautiful stretches of any Camino.

Eventually, I arrived at Hospedaje Rustico Os Castaños. Bed and breakfast for 35€. It was quite a glorious day!

10. Pontevedra to Combarro. 12 kms

 

Three kilometres out of Pontevedra is a fork in the path. A steady stream of pilgrims continue straight on, all but a hapless German couple whom I’ll mention again in a minute. I take the turn to the left, on the Variante Espiritual. Immediately I’m embraced by silence, no babel of tongues or clacking of poles or tramping of feet.

The variant is divided into three stages: Pontevedra to Armenteira, Armenteira to Villanova de Arouca, Villanova de Arouca back to Pontecesures on the Camino Portugués. Because the first stage ends with a steep climb, I decide to break my day at Combarro, and climb tomorrow.

The first kilometre is quite utilitarian. A little confusion of roads led me across a couple of bridges, past a giant horreo and up the side of a valley. Spread out behind was the agglomeration of Pontevedra, and across the valley I saw the motorway and a cluster of little hillside villages.

The trail was marked with the characteristic yellow arrow like the Camino of old, with the occasional shell and a special marker for the Variante Espiritual. You have to be careful though, for sometimes the arrows vanish, or they did for me, and a passing motorist had to put me right. A few kilometres on, I met a German couple who had taken the wrong way and were heading back to the Camino Portugués.

Eventually I arrived at the town of Poio, and here, a visit to the monastery alone was worth the detour. Around three sides of one of the cloisters is a mosaic of the Camino Frances that is absolutely stunning. It begins with Paris, then skips to Roncevalles and all of the great towns along the way, except Leon, strangely. It’s a magnificent work of art!

Then down to the sea, a grassy stroll along the foreshore, and a sandy stroll along the

beach. And on to the little town of Combarro with its charming pueblo marinero. This is a village of “seafaring houses” once used by the fishermen who went down to the sea from where they lived.  Between the houses, paths run down to the sea where the water laps on the lower steps. Now of course, cafes and bars abound. I enjoyed my beer just a few feet from the sea. Tomorrow, I must climb 1,800 feet.