Camino Portugues Day 15 - Vilanova da Arousa to Milladoiro

After a good nights sleep in my silent and extremely dark apartment, I had an early alarm as I had a boat to catch. The booking of the trip on the Traslatio route down the river to Pontecesures wasn’t entirely clear in England a few months ago, and before I got to the dock I wasn’t sure if I was going on a ferry or something more like an open skiff. In fact it was something in the middle.

It took 30 people plus the captain and crew member, but there were only seats inside for 28. The last 2, a pair of Italian girls, were given the seats outside. On a sunny day that would have been a bonus. As it was lashing with rain, it was really not.

And everyone snugly (and smugly) dry inside did not offer their seats to them. They must have found it particularly annoying that one man with an indoor seat stood outside in the rain for most of the journey.

This route follows the journey that the disciples took with the body of St James after he was killed in Jerusalem in AD 44. I’d been looking forward to it, despite my habitual reluctance to get on a boat. I reckoned that as it was going up a river as opposed to the high seas I would be ok, and so it came to pass. We moved at quite a pace, but the journey was smooth, and eventually the rain was replaced just with grey murk, so the Italian girls got a breather and they also took my photo.

The boat slowed down at various points, firstly so that we could look at the boats harvesting mussels. Having seen the boat in harbour sorting them, it was great to see the fishermen working at sea.

That’s a tough job. When I see the mussels in the supermarkets at home I will think of those fishermen out in the pouring rain.

Later we looked at the various stone crosses that are placed up the river to mark the saint’s journey. For some people on the boat these were clearly full of significance, others slept through the whole trip, and one girl sat looking at her phone throughout. I nipped in and out of the dry boat and into the rain (as it had started again) enjoying the way that the crosses emerged from the mist, on rocks covered in algae and weed.

After about 80 minutes and without any sort of safety notices or indication that there might be life jackets on board, we arrived in industrial looking Pontecesures and I set off smartly, as this was probably going to be the last bit of solitude on the walk.

Within a kilometre I couldn’t see any other pilgrims, even when I stopped in an underpass to lose a layer of clothing.

I stopped in Padrón for some breakfast. It was sadly not the famous peppers, instead I was served the first unpleasant thing to eat since I started in Porto, a cheese empanada made with plastic cheese. I left it. I enjoyed walking through the market and looking at the bacalao much more.

I walked past the road where the main Portugues Central route comes through Padron. This also marked where the Spiritual Variant finishes - all the Camino Portugues pilgrims are now walking together into Santiago. And it was just 25 km to go.

After taking note of a special offer on Camino tattoos, (probably won’t!) whilst walking out of Padron, I was greeted with ‘buen Camino’ and, as always, I replied in suit. And then I heard the family talking in English, and stopped to talk to them. Amanda, Leon and Chris are from Florida, and Leon is just 6 years old.  They’ve walked from Tui, so he will have walked over 100km when they eventually arrive. It’s a lot for anyone, but for a six year old it’s remarkable. According to his mum Leon has more energy than his parents, and he’s been amazing. What an incredible adventure, and great respect to his parents for making it happen.

I’ve been trying to fill my Credencial up today, so thought I’d try my luck for a stamp in a church on the outside of town. It was (not unusually) closed, but I was glad I’d gone in, as otherwise I’d have missed the extraordinary displays of flowers in the cemetery.

It was still raining, and there was quite a lot of road walking today. So there’s been a lot of time, whilst subsumed in my poncho, to reflect on the last fortnight, and my first Camino. I was thinking about could I have done it differently, or would I have done it differently? I don’t think so. I could easily have done it faster, I’ve often reached my destination by late lunchtime with lots of strength in my legs indicating I could have walked further. But I’m glad I limited my mileage. I’ve really enjoyed being able to take my time, being able to look at things if I wanted to, to go and explore the town or village, to chat to people, to not feel under pressure. This has never been about a physical challenge, I’ve nothing to prove. In contrast I’ve met people who have been walking 30 or 35 km a day. I completely understand that some people have a very limited amount of time to walk, but I think I’d rather do shorter distances and maybe not travel so far than complete a longer distance but not have time to breathe it in.

Although the path was much busier, an effect of the rain was that everybody had their heads down trying to keep as dry as possible. So in fact everyone was actually walking on their own this morning.

When I put the pack on this morning, it felt so much lighter than usual, I was convinced I’d left something behind. I checked the whole apartment thoroughly, but no, everything was  packed. In fact it wasn’t until a couple of hours into today’s walk that my left shoulder started its habitual stiffness. I have (I suppose unsurprisingly!) just got stronger and fitter.

I ducked into a church to escape the rain and release the poncho condensation for a bit and to rest. Since the one that was closed outside Porto most churches had been open, clearly the closer we get to Santiago the more likely it is that we are given sanctuary, together with a credential stamp. I’ve averaged 2 or 3 a day since Porto, today I’ve had 6.

Trudging in the rain listening to my audiobook, I almost missed Jan as her face was obscured with a waterproof and she also didn’t spot me. But then a second glance meant that we realised that we were bumping into each other after so many days since we had the riotous evening together in Estabulo de Valinhas. We stopped at a nearby café, and shortly Sal joined us and we had a lovely orange juice and split a piece of tarta de Santiago together. Hopefully we’ll see each other again on Sunday when they get into the city.

And then out into the rain again, everybody walking with a fairly steady pace and covered in rain gear. It just kept raining. The path climbed fairly steadily up a hill cut through a forest that maybe a couple of days ago I’d have stopped to look at, but now I was soggy and keen to get to the end. I’d walked about 10 miles and I had another four or so to go and there was no sign that it was going to stop raining.

But just as I was beginning to get thoroughly bored of being wet,  it stopped. The relief was enormous, it was so lovely to feel air on my face and arms.  I walked past a garden in A Pedreira full of ebullient flowers that seemed to be celebrating for me.

Milladoiro, my penultimate stop of this adventure, is a suburb of Santiago. I’m staying in a big modern albergue near a shopping centre. There are 24 beds in my room, which is comfortable and very clean.

I’ve watched someone clean the women’s showers and toilets at least twice this afternoon. It’s full of nationalities, Venezuelan, Canadian, Chinese, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Malaysian, American, Italian etc etc. There’s lots of interaction, some people making dinner together, others just chatting. When I arrived I had a moment of feeling lonely, a feeling I’ve hardly had since I set off. It felt a bit of an effort to talk to strangers yet again, and I’d thought about how nice it would be to have David or the girls or one of my friends here. But I didn’t have anyone, so I took myself off to have some food to perk myself up. By the time I got to the restaurant in the centre of the suburb it was 3.45pm and I’d hardly eaten anything all day. So I was very pleased to see a menu del dia, as that’s always plentiful and good value. My basic Spanish was up to translating the starters, and I ended up with a bowl of lentil soup which was very good. I didn’t do so well with understanding the options for the main course. It appeared that the choice was either (in translation) ‘knuckle’ or ‘rooster with potatoes’. Assuming that rooster was basically chicken, and not wanting any sort of knuckle, I went with the latter. My face when I was presented with two fried fish was probably expressive. As Jessie texted - ‘it ain't solo travel if you're not laughing by yourself at a fried fish’

I came back after doing one of my favourite activities, which is forensically going round supermarkets whilst abroad. So many lovely things that I could happily take home, were I to have a suitcase.

I got back to the Albergue feeling a lot better, and after sorting out my pack and drying my clothes I chatted to a couple of people at the big communal table in the kitchen, and am contentedly writing this blog now in the living area of the albergue. There are other people around that I could talk to if I wanted, but I’m feeling that I don’t need to in order to be happy.

Stats

Distance travelled - 13.5 miles/22 km (plus 27km by boat!)

Total ascent - 1190 feet/363m

Local tipple - Estrella (yet again) with lentil soup and rooster fish. For that (according to the Spanish speaker in the albergue to whom I regaled the story) is an actual fish….