Tui to O Porriño – 18.1km, 4.25hours, Monday, 23 September

This is our ninth Camino and I still screwed up in the planning stages. I knew that Tui is only 115km from Santiago and the closest main town to start a mini-Camino of at least 100km, enough to earn a Compostela (certificate of completion). Becausei it will take most people five or six days from Tui, many Spaniards start this walk on Saturdays, Sundays or Mondays and begin there, taking just a week off work. There was a MASSIVE parade out of Tui today that we had to deal with, despite leaving very late, almost 9:00am after breakfast. I really should have planned better. Even last night, there was a crowd at our albergue getting into the Camino spirit with a lot of wine and a lot more noise until late. We are now on the crest of a wave to Santiago. I have just finished booking all our beds so we don’t need to race for one.

The sour day really started in the Tui cafe in the basement of our building. It was quite crowded with a fairly long queue waiting to order but it was the only cafe nearby that we saw was open. While in the queue, Melanie noticed many pilgrims getting up and leaving without taking their empty dishes and trash back to the the bar. As she always does, she just started bussing the tables. All the other pilgrims watched and didn’t lift a finger or figure out that is what pilgrims should do. When they were done, they just walked out too. After ordering, I took over the bussing duties and even the people next to us, who watched me clear tables, also got up to leave without helping. I grabbed their plates and cups and followed them as far as the bar. Ugghh. The final insult was when we were leaving, I had to pass by a woman blocking the aisle while struggling to adjust her backpack. I waited patiently until there was space, then walked by her. Just then, her hand slipped while pulling a strap and she hit me. It was an accident but I also apologized to her. Actually, I should not have said “I also apologized” because she didn’t really and her friend that was watching the whole procedure gave me the dirtiest look and a fairly international tut-tutting.

We were glad to get out of there. As we left we saw the CaminoFacil backpack forwarding service carrying our bags to their truck. We switched to them today because of TopSantiago’s screw-up and lies. That was a great sign because TopSantiago usually only picked up the bags after 1:00pm. CaminoFacil was getting them at least four hours earlier. Put that story in the win column.

When we stared walking, the temperature was a chilly 51ºF (10.5ºC) with a lot of fog. It stayed like that most of the morning. I could see my breath even at noon but then the fog was finally burnt away by the sun. The chill was God’s way of saying “Welcome to Galicia”.

Things got sweeter as we left the Tui old town (“ancient town” to any Americans, Singaporeans, Aussies or Kiwis reading this). We were walking past a grammar school as they were about to let the children in to start the day. A group of four older girls ran up to us and asked if we spoke English or Spanish. Melanie answered English too soon, assuming the girls had been instructed by their teachers to practice their English as pilgrims walked by. No, it turns out that they were selling lemonade for 2€. That’s a little steep for a lemonade but I figured they were raising money for some school event based on the teachers watching over the whole affair. Also, the girls were upfront about what we would get and at what cost. Finally, none of them looked like a gypsy.

We chatted briefly with many pilgrims today but only to make an acquaintance. The Spanish were mostly in their own groups and many of the other pilgrims we met were American. There was also a Guatemalan who lives in the US who told us that the feast day of Porriño’s patron saint was this weekend and the last day of celebration was today. Uh oh. That means that it is usually harder to find dinner and the noise may go on all night long. Luckily, I guess, our apartment is about 700m from the center point of the celebrations. We will check them out later.

The trail today was about half tarmac or cement and half natural trails, if you watch where you walk. I finally solved one mystery around this Camino though. For years, citizens of O Porriño have been fighting about the path of the trail. Businessmen, cafe and bar owners, etc, all want the trail to be on the traditional route which is now an ugly major main road. The pilgrims are their customers. The people who represent pilgrims though, want the trail to parallel the main road and use natural paths or small rural roads. When I say the citizens fight to promote their stance, I really mean it. Camino arrows have been painted over and redirected on almost daily basis for years. A partial agreement was made, it appears, that neither side was entirely happy about. 8.4km south of town now has a marked split and shows the official was through the industrial roadway and the “Complimentary way” through natural trails and small roads. Unfortunately for the business folk, all the guide books recommend going the Complimentary way (which they very confusingly call the river path.). This time, we made sure we took the river path even though we rarely saw a river or even a stream. It was only about 2.3km south of town where the real fun starts – and where the “river trail” really starts. There were dozens and dozens of arrows pleading for us to go to their competing destinations. It was ugly. Even after we chose the river route, every chance there was to switch over,there were a lot of yellow arrows. Even Dorothy, the scarecrow, the tin man and the cowardly lion would be confused by the fighting signage. We just kept on the most scenic and non-commercial route. It turned out that in 2014, we also took the “complementary route” but not the river way. We lost out because the river trail was lovely.

We are just back from a very nice spaghetti dinner to store some carbs for tomorrow. The ice cream dessert was to offset all this extra exercise. We stopped by to listen to a outdoor orchestra concert for a bit – well at least Melanie did. I played the backstop behind the goalie practicing his saves. I was useful to the kids because they didn’t actually have a proper goal. One kid just played barefoot and his two shoes indicated the width of the goal. If it was above his outstretched arms, it was also a missed goal over the “bar”. That’s how most soccer / football games are played around the world.

Now it’s bedtime. Peace y’all

Goodnight George & Leo