Camino Portugues | Seriousblabla

Stage 1: Porto - Vairao’s Monastery

So we turn right at the very door, shrugging off our shoulders most of the pilgrim population only to stop at the bar around the corner for a cafe con leche, then hopping to the bakery in front, etc.. etc..
By the time our feet hit the road for real it’s already late on the pilgrim’s clock.
Fooled by the rack of boots at the hostel being still half full, we left last, unaware that those belonged to those who already completed the camino and were taking their warrior rest, while those starting up on the day were long gone.
The flashing show of high tech clothes, water bags with a tube, exchange of information about electrolytes, aminoacids and even creatine...was already fully ON the evening before. Those guys were prepared for apocalypse....while we two were dressed as casual sunday strollers. S. was still healing from a broken foot and was clearly limping in the kitchen, even before step zero. The ugly outskirts landscape did not help our pace and neither did our frequent distractions to loot apricot and plum trees alike. Or our long foot ablution in a fountain, bonding with some local cycling manmals around the topic of water. ¨Agua nao controlada” - that’s everywhere. You can drink it. No problem. This sums it up.

We saw no one on the way and tried to reconcile this observation with the information from the seasoned pilgrim warning us against the high season. Where’s everyone? The only logical conclusion seem to be that they are all already hiding their hideous hides in the hostels which they are filling. Only a canadian couple appears in the horizon, then walks past us, clearly perturbed by the need to race us out of the Monastery we were aiming to.

So eventually we got to the Monastery of Vairao to find out it’s nearly empty. Peace is restored among fellow walkers and we all gather in the kitchen after dinner to exchange stories and jokes. Yes, now we are friends and we can joke...till the following morning...

We meet Stefan - a nice austrian student, Theresa, an enthusiastic German woman, and the above mentioned canadian couple, while our future Turkish friend is still a shadow going to bed at 7pm at this stage... The only word I note down on my diary after the convivial evening is ¨chicken¨. Why? The canadians were desperately searching for food at lunch and ended up buying by mistake a full chicken from an insistant vendor and were eating that (and only that) for the whole day. Then upon arrival at the monastery they were welcomed by one of the volunteers who directly asked them ¨chicken?” upon sniffing their arrival. Panick ensued, as the couple thought that maybe the local practice was to share food around a common meal ...but they had eaten it all!

Stage 2: To Barcelos

It was another transfer day to get further away from Porto in search for better landscapes. Cars overtaking us at ridicolous speed at every corner were still common. It was not unusual for us to turn around at the sound of an engine turning in a small country road and screaming ¨Cḿon, car, give us a break!”.

Stage 3: To Ponte de Lima

Finally we are out of the car beaten tracks and the Camino starts to feel more like a proper walk, rather than being like two stranded guys in Slough. Open fields, eucalyptus and oak forests, even some minor hills! And the omni-present water sprinkles generously spreading water on the omni-present corn fields.. and on Pilgrims who can wait for the right moment.
And finally Ponte the Lima..with its glorious bridge reminding me of those we sometimes met in the Camino Frances (Puente de la Reina, Estrella...). The hostel was huge and with a panoramic view straight on the bridge itself. We were all assigned beds in a massive dormitory and immediately met an Italian guy called Marco, whom we both immediately found annoying. He was patrolling the place, including the communal showers, smoking endless sigarettes on the balcony near our beds.. and generally behaving as a small boss. He went as far as joking about his snoring and sleep-talking, warning pilgrims that ¨Pavarotti starts at 9”.

The evening was quiet and uneventful... until the night ¨concerts” began, but of this we’ll hear in the next chapter. Pilgrims were packing and leaving at all times, rumours say that our friend Stefan left at 3 but we could not confirm this as we have never seen him again.

Stage 4: To Rubiaes

The stage is short but crisp, with the biggest climb of the whole camino. At least this is what we have heard from others, as our iron legs barely noticed the slopes. We arrive in Rubiaes before midday and despite the place being pretty much a hole, we force ourselves to stop. Repeat with me: the Pilgrim is patient and takes time for contemplation. And to drink beer to socialize with his fellows. Everyone was gathered in the same bar and they were recounting stories of the previous eventful dormitory night. Marco was on everyone’s lips. Finally we understood that the loud thuds in the middle of the night were pillows blows striken initially on a bed and then straight onto him by a sleepless neighbour. It was clear why a woman, arriving just before us, instantly asked for a room change! And why the Marco guy disappeared from circulation at dawn never to be seen again. Aware of his excesses of decibels he had simply decided to double up stages and find new audiences! My companion S., a certified snorer himself, sighed of relief for having being totally overshadowed. This time.

And a new star on the snoring scene was to enter the stage this very night, saving him again and making Marco’s performances sound like soft breezes of wind in comparison....

Back to the midday break: Davide, another italian guy, was holding the stage practically alone.. charming all the ladies around..while we were on the outskirts, overhearing the very basic but effective conversations, delivered with a perfect Italian English and plentiful of pathos.
The group conversation about italian gestures was another highlight as it triggered a crescendo of unfiltered jokes and uncensored explanations, which left no doubt on whether these pilgrims were walking for religios reasons. Rather than being an obstacle, the poor mastery of the English language was the great enabler of this less-than refined convivial moment: no one understood the full extent of what they were really saying...

Then S. struck a casual conversation with New Zealand woman revolving about booking hostels. She had her trip fully organised in advance by a company that even dropped her with a car in the middle of nowhere to start walking and reserved all her hotels. Sometimes the day distances were too long, sometimes too small. She was lamenting of a lack of flexibility.
People book to avoid being left on the street, but then they need to deal with the problem of getting to the place they reserved. So there is no magic solution. It’s just a matter to choosing your stress.

Other characters worth mentioning are:

Simone, Mike, Caroline, Shinhao (aka the magic poker)..who we will keep meeting till the end. They are the probably the good-looking bad boys n girlz of the Camino. Mike will become a mate, even though his deep conversations about life were veering towards depression..
The rest of Italians: Natalino, Nunzia,Carlo. I now realize they were only three! Felt more like 35...
The argentinian actor Ignacio (aka Nacho). A real gentlemen and a joker
The ever-present Dutch girl (Sophie). The key figure, in my opinion, linking all these heterogeneus masses together into a more or less (I´d say more less) coherent band.
The mysterious Turkish girl (Buse)...who initially refused our dinner invitation but then awoken by the delightful smell of my questionable rice with pesto came down to eat with us and will become our trusted friend during the next days.
The Russian guy (Savely), a very nice and friendly young man, who we kept meeting and walking with for some time.

And finally, the Danish guy, Jonathan, a man present everywhere on the background sipping a beer and smoking a sigarette, or skipping past you during the walking day with his small bag and sporty shoes. He had some remarkable bedbug bites who allegedly forced him to stop for 6 days to recover in Ponte de Lima, so he appeared out of nowhere and was immediately noticed for his shyness during the day. But, as it turned out, he was not shy at all at night... From night one, or better from minute one, he became S.’s personal saviour and everyone else's nightmare...

Stage 5: To Tui

Despite some stops due to sudden rainstorms, we enjoy the walk and arrive respectively second and third at the hostel, right after Buse. Both Valenca and Tui are beautiful medieval towns, but we notice that the Camino vibe has changed. Both towns are flooded with pilgrims we had never crossed before and we even spot 300 teenagers on a camino school trip. The horror stories about racing for accommodation are raising again their ugly head in the pilgrim arena...

With utmost despair I find out that in the hostel there is a wonderful kitchen...without any kitchenware. Welcome to Galicia. S. is gloating: he will manage to drag me to the restaurant twice on that day! At lunch we end up in a busy joint which was a one-woman-show and served a horrible pilgrim menu. We struck conversation with Mike the Brit and bonded around our common ages and the complaint of being surrounded by 25 year olds who are still enthusiastic about life.

Stage 6: To Redondela

We will be remembered for our random acts of kindness. The astonishment in the face of the young Italian guy when we told him that his breakfast payment has been taken care of. Good move Mr. S.! The sincere appreciation from Ignazio for the eucalyptus walking stick I gave him as a present a few days before. I felt I really gave it to someone who appreciates it more than I do and will bring it forward in his travels. This sums up what the camino is about. I should open my own travel agency and provide these kind of services....

Today it was a long day, where the landscape luckily improved over time.The ugly stretch that looked like route 66 ended with a coffee break with Ignacio before his departure from the Camino. What we had missed in beauty from the land was compensated by the human beauty of the farewell.

To keep up with our generous karma, I then decided to stop and collect plums to distribute to thirsty pilgrims along the way. Right after the picking we come across a huge crowd waiting under a bridge. "What time is the bus?" we ask - then we notice they are all in line for a stamp on their credential. The plum distribution goes reasonably well, with only a few refusals on the ground they already had breakfast. We rose fast in popularity and disappeared from view even faster.

The next witnesses of my miracles were an old couple waiting under a bus shed. A luxurious plum tree was hoovering on top of the shed, but was out of their view. So I took the chance to impress. I approached them and with a single blow of my stick made a juicy golden plum fall in my hand then promptly offered it to the adoring lady. As she was still in awe..trying to find the words to thank me and starting a long conversation..I was gone.

And I did well. Later on I was told about a group of 4 generations of US-mormons on the Camino proselitizing via a whatsapp group in which they added everyone they met. The identikit of the elders was matching the profiles of the 2 people at the bus stop. Couldn´t have escaped more brilliantly.

We arrive in Redondela under the heat of the sun and get 2 of the last few beds in the public hostel. While my friend was out fine-dining (so to say), I was preparing a cold salad in the hostel and asked to borrow a knife from a German fellow (mine went missing and only reappeared in the early morning when falling out of my bag with a loud bang). He thoroughly questioned me before giving me an appropriate tool for the job. The interview went well and he concluded: "Here it is a gut sharp knife who’ll do the job of cutting an onion!". Loving German efficiency.

Stage 7: To Pontevedra

Walking the end of the stage with Buse, then stopping at a ghost bar run by a dog. We move on to the next bar and then straight into town to secure our places at the municipal hostel. We then realize life is too short to spend hours waiting for check-in time in an ugly parking, so decide to invest in private accommodation and move on to the town center. No curfew, curtains at the beds, air-conditioning, almost empty dorms: fancy enough for us. A people-less hostel run by a woman who could control us by a webcam and was not shy of messaging S. in real time when she saw me going in the wrong direction. Fucking freaky!
We do our usual separate thing for lunch then go for a nap which I jokingly said would be 20 min. After the exact amount of time elapsed, S. pulls me out of sleep from a leg and drags me out to meet Buse in the heart of the heat. We wonder like zombies for a beer, then we meet a larger group and go for more beer. After a visit to a couple of churches to slow down our alcohol consumption, we keep following our tour guides Buse and Mike who had matching clothes, even with the same zips on their arses. We somehow lose some Italians in the dedalus of streets and then go for dinner at a pulperia, having the famous galician pulpo. Then we move on to a Gay Pride concert for the only reason that we have no curfew to honor tonight and it would be inappropriate to get back before 11. We end up enjoying it and both falling in love with both the lady guitarists.

Stage 8: To Caldas des Reyes

Another short day-walk. When almost there, I asked S. about the hostel and he suddenly finds out that the pilgrim hostel is bookable, rather than first-come first-serve...then panics and book us up in a low-key pension with TV. They even have a bar at the entrance so we are completely independent till tomorrow. My mate has a plan to turn us into fully-fledged tourists. I wonder if we’ll rent a car tomorrow...

We decide to go out nonetheless and found some thermal baths were we chat effortlessly with more pilgrims, while nearly burning my feet without even noticing. Only the arrival of a Texan trumpista who is not afraid of repeating his jokes every time a new person arrives (while the others are still there) motivates us to move on. His comments about the baths being for washing up in roman times and that gossip has been going on there for 2000 years were somehow bearable even after hearing them 3 times. But his declared love for Meloni and my comment "we don´t have the same standards" was the prelude to our departure.

We then found Sophie, busy as usual to steer a group of Italians towards dinner. Seen that the negotiation were going well, we decided to join. We waved at 2 extra pilgrims to join us... and so Lucy, the Scottish girl, enters the story. She was very white and very married. An explosion of irony and stories, mostly about work and being organized. Quirky enough to become our best friend for the following couple of days.

Stage 9: To Padron

Walking up to Padron happened in a breeze as we kept meeting nice people along the way. I secure my bed in the public hostel as far as possible from that of my travel companion with the idea that my side will became the "quiet coach". Later on a team of strapping lads invaded the beds above me, while S. found himself surrounded by angelic-looking ladies. He will end up not closing an eye for fear of disturbing their beauty sleep, while I myself were in a epicenter of sound waves. A probably Italian person clapped their hands loudly every time some snoring started. Not sure if that helped. S’s terror was increasing at every applause. At some point, he even started having visions of the ghost of Mike and his restless mind was spinning stories of a possible escape of Mike from the spiritual to the central way...running away from something...and then connecting this to the news of an injury occurring to our friend Buse and her message saying that she felt "best and safest with us"...A story of seduction and abandonment, giving rise to a fugitive and a broken heart...

The afternoon had not gone much better. The hostel was assaulted by a horde of school trip students, staying at a big complex nearby but loitering about the huge food truck parked in just front of our door. Napping? Impossible.

At least the evening was a success. Sophie was spreading rumors that Savely declared that I was going to cook a communal meal for everyone. Since Savely was not present, I could not refuse the bestowing of the role and had to bow. Luckily the plan was simple: buy some basic ingredients, cook some pasta, have fun. But as it often happens in big groups, chaos was the logical conclusion. The Italians were skeptical and a long negotiation started on the ¨if and the ¨what” to cook. All possible sauce hypothesis for the pasta were evaluated (pesto? carbonara? blabla) and found incompatible to meet everyone's needs and standards. The option of a full menu with several courses was explored. We were slowly heading towards a cul-de-sac. And then the trump card: why doesn´t everyone buy and cook what they want, we share and eat together? A round of applause. Then those who wanted to cook a simple pasta got together and swiftly executed the original plan.
Since we were only 6 this time (and most importantly only 2 Italians of which one was me) we managed to agree on a sauce (Carlo, do what you want). He took over the cooking of the sauce (olives, tuna, onion, tomatoes)- which was rather simple, but it could not be too simple...as a matter of national honor....while another Italian guy Natalino bought industrial doses of salami, mozzarella, tomatoes, cold stuff and presented single-handedly a huge spread of abundance on the table. Not sure he was happy, thou.. .maybe he felt "fooled" into doing so much..while others did not put the same effort? The eve was a convivial havoc nonetheless, with more pilgrims plugging in. Felt like real camino ambiance. This is what you want! Pilgrims joining in the vortex! The creation of community! We finally did it on the very last night before Santiago!

Stage 10: To Santiago

S. was a muscular fury in the morning and led a forced march that got us there before 11. We did not even stop at a point 5 km from Santiago, when you first see the cathedral from afar and you are supposed to self-humiliate. In that precise moment I felt a stone in my shoes which sat into an uncomfortable position and was my faithful torture till the end.
Once in Santiago, we were circling for ages in spirals around the cathedral and at some point I thought we would circle forever on an ever repeating road and S.’s curse is to never make it to the end ....but finally we were in the famous square staring at the glorious facade and bathing into a flood of pilgrims from all walks..of camino-life.

The highlight of the day was the pilgrim mass, though, during which my mate was literally sleeping like a baby on the cold marble. He woke up only when we found ourselves in a prime spot to watch the Holy Communion- given to an adoring line of devote pilgrims. Some of them were plane-diving with open mouths and landing on their knees in front of the priest, others were undergoing a full benediction , others producing some spectacular cross signing gestures.. I must admit that this is the fist time we saw so much devotion all at once. It must be the Santiago-effect, as later on we also felt compelled to see the tomb of Saint Tiago and then walked up to see its wide statue. Yielding to the peer pressure and not wanting to disappoint the security guard, Mr S. leaned fully on the shoulders of the saint in what I´d define an energetic, prologed and devote hug...I was astonished of such a rapid conversion. My turn came to move on towards the statue, looking above its shoulders and peeking from behind the altar to the adoring mass of pilgrims waiting for the evening mass. But I myself did not see Jesus.

My companion had barely slept and was probably shaken by the spiritual experiences, so his collapse came as no surprise. He was suddenly losing lucidity and I had to take control of the route navigation to get him to the first overpriced restaurant for an emergency coke, then on to the hostel for an extended nap.

The sign that the camino was over came as soon as we entered the hostel. People were going wild in filling washing machines, even separating white from colored, or taking elevators..now that the certificate was in their hands. Does finishing the walk turn you in to a pilgrim or into an ex-pilgrim?

The day ended with yet another organizational disaster while trying to go for dinner together. The failure mode was summed up nicely by a message we got from Sophie after we gave up wai ting: "too many Italians and too little food"

Following days

The walk is over and I can finally sleepover. Wrong. I hear some loud snaps in the early hours, unmistakably coming from S’s room. I get in and the floor is covered in messy bark. The man is in tears after a hard breakup. That of the stick. The item he considers his veritable travel companion. Unable to part ways with it, he snapped it in four and put all of those shrapnel at the bottom of his bag with the intention to reconstruct it once in the UK. I had to reassure him that this could be done and that it’s a good idea to reconnect the pieces with some plastic pipes. I had to reassure him that he would not be stopped at the airport with accusations of being a member of AlQaida.

The day continues in a memorable fashion. We stick around the cathedral and are finally reconnected to many of our travels companions. It was the final goodbye moment, that of the group picture. Everyone was there, including a random cyclist posing with us in front of everyone.

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