Ponte de Lima to Rubiães – 19.3km, 5.25hours, Saturday, 21 September

For anyone following us, don’t count on the same mileage between the two towns. First, we walked a whole kilometer from our apartment in Ponte de Lima before we got across the bridge to the main Camino albergue. Also, the Quinta (farm house B&B) is about 850m before (south of) the main Rubiães albergue. Finally, I don’t think anyone else will also have to retrace their steps backwards 650m (running) then re-walk that section for a total of and extra 1.3km for the day.

Those first two distance differences make sense. The other one, well, was different.  Here is how it happened.  Honest to God true story.  Melanie and I were admiring the “outdoor art installation” along with four French pilgrims who were just in front of us.  As we all left together, I found that the French group were walking a little slower than Melanie and I so I went to pass them.  I greeted them with “Bon Chemin”, the French version of Buen Camino, as I passed them on the left.  That, unfortunately, started a conversation.  I explained that I only spoke a few phrases in French because we have walked two Caminos there. We chatted about a few other things for a moment before they asked what city I was from.  I answered That I was raised in Baltimore but I have lived in Singapore for 36 years. My wife, was Singaporean. As I said that, I looked over my left shoulder to point out Melanie.  Oops.  Where was Melanie?  She must have been walking slower so I bid the French group goodbye and waited a moment.  Then I started walking backwards on the trail.  Then I started running backwards on the trail while shouting for Melanie.  Then I tried calling her on the phone – there was no answer. Then it occurred to me to find her iPhone location via an app we have.  Alamak!  She was about more than 500m away from me on some road in the next village.  The only way I knew how to get to her was to run around the roads back to the highway that we crossed under, go up the highway to that next village.  That confused me though as she couldn’t have done that herself. There must be a shortcut to the road where she was somewhere along the Camino.  Before I could think of checking another app for a shortcut, I got a dropped call back from Melanie.  Wes were in a forest and phone signals don’t work there.  I managed to call her back and speak to her.  She said she was on the Camino trail about 1km in front of me (based on an inaccurate guess from helpful pilgrims who passed me).  I walked back along the trail 650m and found Melanie waiting for me.  

Together, we figured out what happened.  Neither of us killed the other.  Heck, we didn’t even get angry despite the sweat now pouring down my face.  I was so certain that Melanie never passed me while I was talking to the French group.  Based on what Melanie remembered though, she did pass us on the right, just as I said “and my wife is Singaporean” – that same second I looked over my left shoulder for her while I was on the left side of the trail.   How is that for a coincidence?  She kept walking ahead, I started backwards on the trail before she realized I wasn’t behind her anymore.  If I had also think to check on another app like maps.me, Google Maps or, possibly even the Camino app, I would have seen that the road in the nearby town was actually on the Camino route, I front of me.  The “short cut” to her was the actual Camino trail.  Ugggh. Live, laugh and learn.  What is the moral of this story?  Never talk to French people, they have very bad juju. 

Not double counting or anything but about 8.9km of today’s trail was on natural trails.  Today also had the hardest climb that I recall on this Camino.  There was a small 100m climb over 2km early in the morning but then we had a steep 300m climb in  less than 2km a little later. The second of those climbs had a good number of flat bits that just made the climbing bits steeper.   We were passed by many pilgrims and we passed many others. It was unanimous though – everyone was struggling with that second climb. 

Some people have asked about my back. Thank you for your thoughts. I’m doing okay but it’s not perfect (or at least in the same decrepit condition it was a week ago).   While walking, I feel no pain at all and  I can bend over and pick up a dropped walking step pain free too.  What I can’t do though is bend over and do a task or chore bent like that for any amount of time, then try to stand up after doing the  task. If it takes 5 minutes to be bent over to complete a task, it takes me an additional 5 minutes to be able to be straight up.  Sooo….. I’m working on improving my recovery time. 

The frustration part of the day was dealing with the bag forwarding service.  Once again, at 1:00pm, our bags were still  in the Ponte de Lima accommodations.  After getting a bit of a scolding to yesterday while trying to follow up on our bags, I waited until we arrived at our B&B near Rubiães. That was at 2:45pm, after the 2:pm expected delivery time.  I sent the company a message and the lied and said the driver is running a little late.  Then they said that my bags were not picked up because I put the wrong date to the transfer request.  I replied with the receipt they had e-mailed me with the correct dates on them.  Then the said they  must have a systems problem but she would see what she could do. At 4:10pm she said she would check with the drivers to see if any of them could do a second trip to Rubiãs.  20 minutes later, she said she was calling for a taxi to pick up and deliver them.  At 5:10pm, the taxi finally arrived with our bags.  So from when we got into the room, we couldn’t shower, wash our clothes or really do anything. This was also on a day when we were going to be bussed up the road to the closest restaurant at 6:00pm. It was a mad scramble but we did what we needed to do.  If you are following us, I do not recommend TopSantiago baggage transport services.  CaminoFácil certainly has a better website but we will find out over the next week how well they work out.

By the way, that bus to the restaurant tonight was in a clunker minibus owned by the restaurant and it carried Melanie and I and seven other women.  I was in heaven.  At the restaurant, we also bumped into Jessica, Avis and Livia so we ate with them again.  It’s never a dull moment with them as they have some funny stories from the walks.  They are also patient to hear our stories even though we are old enough to be their grandparents. This was a pilgrim restaurant so the food was cheap, the ingredients were too but the portions were plentiful and they gave us two free bottles of wine for the five of us.  The French group that I was talking to on the trail were also at the same restaurant too (after all, there was only one restaurant in town).  I explained to them what happened with the lost Melanie story and they had a great laugh.  Later they called me over to their table for an after dinner drink that guaranteed a hangover tomorrow.  It’s also the cause of the last 20 spelling, grammar and incomplete sentences.

With that, I sign off. Peace y’all!

Goodnight George & Leo