Pontevedra to Caldes de Reís – 21.7km, 5.25 hours, Thursday, 26 September

The forecast for today was rain at 7:00am, 65% chance of rain at 8:00 and 9:00am, 50% chance at 10:00 and 11:00am and 20% chance at noon.  Right. We are going to get soaked again, I figure. By the time we finished breakfast and started walking around 7:30am, the rain had stopped but there were dark clouds overhead and strong winds. We are going to get soaked. We had six drips of drizzle at around 10.00am. We ignored that. A half hour later, we saw it coming hard and we quickly threw on our ponchos. That saved us because for the next 60, it poured down. Then it stopped. We took off the gear to avoid overheating. Finally, around 11:00am, the expected downpour began.  Once again, we rushed to protect ourselves and our gear. Once again, the downpour lasted 60 seconds.  What the heck?!?  It was sunny for the rest of the walk.

The walk was the best day yet in terms of the trail. There was lots of natural trails and most of the balance was very quiet backroads, all paralleling the N550 / Via Romana XIX.  There were beautiful trails in the ancient woods but some very nice tracks right next to the highway too. By the way, the N550 is not what most people would think of as a highway. It is only one lane in each direction but it is still pretty busy.  When there is a way to avoid walking along side of it, we do.

On one of those quiet backstreets early this morning, Melanie and I were walking on the left side of the road.  A couple had just passed us on the right side of the road. I could hear a car approaching from behind and worried about the narrow space between the pedestrians. Why didn’t the other couple stay left like most pilgrims?  At any rate, as the  car sounded close, there was a very loud crashing sound.  I turned and saw the car screeching to a halt just behind us so I ran over.  The driver got out so he was okay.  He started looking around and under his car for damage.  I, however, walked behind the car to see what he hit.  Wow.  He ran over a manhole cover that must not have been installed properly.  The heavy cover was launched upwards, hitting the bottom of his car and came to a rest about three meters away. I helped the driver to carry it back and cover the hole as well as lending him my torch to look for damage.  If there was damage, we couldn’t find it. He may have been lucky.

The rest of the walk offered entertainment from small dogs that wanted to make friends with us; two Japanese pilgrims aged 76 and 80 (they told us their ages as the passed us); a barefooted pilgrim walking against the flow, looking for attention; a second breakfast at the second bar in San Amaro ( if there are two cafes or bars in town, we always go to the second one – it’s less crowded and they appreciate our patronage more); and, lastly, we stole two grapes from a vineyard that the Camino passes through.  I almost always resist the urge to pluck fruit from a tree along the way.  Lots of pilgrims don’t have the same will power or morals but I look at it as taking food off the table of the farmer / vineyard owner.  The devil got to me today though.  I grabbed two small grapes from a vine that was too high for most pilgrims to reach.  Melanie got one (an Adam and Eve shared guilt thing) and I ate the other.  We both reached the same conclusion together – they tasted just like Concord grape jelly. Delicious but I now have something to confess in Santiago.  Until now, I couldn’t think of anything I did wrong since last year’s confession.  Really. Stop laughing.

Learning from yesterday, we packed clothes to change into upon arrival in Caldas, just in case our bags didn’t arrive before us.  As it turned out, that was not our problem. We could see from the AirTags that our bags were delivered by 10:30am.  When we arrived at the hotel at 1:20pm, we could see our bags, right there, inside the locked front door.  This same door said that the hotel would only open for checking in at 2:00pm. We dragged ourselves back down the road to the nearest bar to have a drink and a small bite while we waited.  It must have been a longer day than usual for us because we both fell asleep. At 2:10pm we woke up, paid our bill and high-tailed it back to the hotel.

It was at the hotel that we met the young Romanian prince and his bodyguard.  They had walked from Lisbon and stopped for a day in Porto just as we were leaving.  The prince showed Melanie photos of Porto enveloped in smoke.  He also told her that they did have to divert from the normal trail in a few places because of fires.  The prince also told Melanie that he was going to Singapore in January and touring Asia for a few months after that.  Finally, I should mention that the Prince was almost certainly only a prince in Melanie’s imagination. The body guard was also just a large, fierce looking guy who didn’t talk much but again, was certainly the prince’s bodyguard in Melanie’s imagination.  Later we met them in the laundromat and, if he really is a prince, he is one who is accustomed to laudromats. 

Peace y’all

Goodnight George & Leo!