Rubiães to Tui – 20.1km, 5.0hours, Sunday, 22 September

Today was a day to be grateful.  Our bags were delivered on time and Melanie was always within sight. We are getting the hang of this again.  Learning to be grateful for anything that comes our way is a big lesson to be learned on the Camino.

The trail was also quite good today with about half being natural trails. A lot of the tarmac and cobblestone portions also had edges to them in dirt or sand and it was obvious that is where most pilgrims walk, at least in dry weather.

The fun part of the day started when we left our accommodations from last night and we had to walk 2.5km to get to the first cafe.  We really needed fuel by then.  As per past walks, that delay in breakfast usually leads to a second breakfast and sometimes even a third and fourth.  Sure enough, an hour is so later we stopped for breakfast #2. We are earning these meals with walking points!  Actually breakfast #1 was just a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and a small muffin. The second one was a can of Fanta and a custard crème filled croissant.  We didn’t really expect a stop for a third breakfast today but fate got in the way. 

We were leaving a small village this afternoon and climbing a small hill.  At the top was a shiny newish food truck where we could, if we wanted to, get a quick drink and go but that wasn’t in our future for today. A small older woman came running out of truck to us and she started jabbering in Portuguese and English. She was very hard to understand but the gist of what she was saying seemed to be that today was the first day she was operating the food truck and we would be her first customers.  She not only had cold drinks for sale but also she made some very good Belorussian pies with chicken or red meat or a potato and spices if we were vegetarians.  Hmmmm…. She looks like a gypsy with a sob story, I think to myself, but I guess we can help out on her first day, just in case I’m wrong.  I wasn’t wrong. We asked for a chicken pie but just one since she said it was really big. Much to my surprise, it was 5€. I guess the bigger surprise was that even though it was big around – the size of a circle I can make with two thumbs and two forefingers – it was less than a centimeter high. I can best describe its taste as greasy partially deep fried smashed bread, fried in chicken grease. It was foul. The small 1€ bottle of juice that we needed to wash it down cost 2.50€ after her hefty mark-up. We ended up running away from her after being ripped off, just in cash we needed medical attention. I was sure she would perform CPR on us for only 100€. Each.

As we got closer to Valença, the last city in Portugal before crossing into Spain, we ran into Hans and Jane, an American couple that we had not seen before. We walked with them for a while and had a nice chat. They are actually hopping around the Camino, spending two nights in a town then bussing ahead to the next stop. To each their own. Unfortunately, we had a bit a problem when, as we were walking, we also bumped into Livia, Jessica and Avis. We hadn’t actually walked with them yet, we just ate a couple of dinners with them. We immediately crossed the road, to greet them and I think Hans and Jane felt dumped by us. That wasn’t our intention but that’s what it looked like. Oops. As it turned out, we only chatted with the girls for a couple of kilometers before Jessica needed her hourly feeding so we walked through the lovely old part of Valença with just each other. And 10,000 tourists.

After Valença, we crossed the bridge into Spain, stopping at the midway point to kiss across the border. We climbed into the old town and quickly found our very nice room in Albergue Ideas Perigrinaas. After showering, we set out for a laundromat across town. I should add that mileage to our total. On the way back to our room, we found a place where we could actually eat dinner in Spain at 6:00pm – well before many restaurants open their door. Something else was unusual about the restaurant too. Their portions are HUGE. Both of our dinners were enough for two people and the lady at the next table was served a pizza-sized hamburger. We won’t need to be fed again for two days.

Peace y’all

Goodnight George and Leo, thanks for the call today