Wednesday May 22, 2019

Ponte de Lima to Rubiaes, Portugal—Day 7; ca. 32,000 steps

Proverbs 7 v. 2-3  Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye.  Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.  Our Lord’s commands bring life and it is good to have them close.  But the whole Bible is interwoven with God’s commands.  How can we remember them all?  Jesus made it simple:  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your soul and with all your strength.  And love your neighbor as much as you love yourself” (Mark 12:30-31).  Just follow these two rules and we will have accomplished all that God requires.  So simple to remember but hard to live out!  Dear Lord, help us to worship you more deeply and to love those you put around us more truly.

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We left at 8:30 but soon stopped for a quick break at a bar/cafe.  I do not speak Portuguese yet the guy at the bar proceeded to talk to me—and amazingly I understood him.  He had seen on TV that a woman in Poland had six babies, which was a surprise because they were only expecting five.  Only five!  Just then Maurice walked up to the bar.  The bartender pointed to Maurice’s stomach and said, “Three!”  Maurice missed the joke but the barkeep and I laughed.  

The path meandered from farm to field to village, through forest glades with waterfalls, past huge orange trees and fig trees and olive trees and blue hydrangea, along stone walls sprouting wildflowers and ivy, next to fields ringed with elevated grapevines, past the distinctive granaries horreos, and always dotted with calla lilies.  After a while a voice called out from behind, wondering where we were from with our distinctive patches.  “From Maryland!” Maurice said.  I think Canadian Mark was hoping for someplace more exotic, but Maurice fell into step with him and I walked with Mark’s walking companion Frederick from Göttingen, a young man who’s a bike racer and who’s been studying law for six years and wondering if he really wants to continue.  He’s been working at a call center in Lisbon for six months and decided on the spur of the moment to do the Caminho Portugues so he could think.  Frederick bought a backpack on Friday, a train ticket to Porto Friday night and started walking on Saturday, slumming with people like us when he wants to socialize and walking faster when he wants to think.  His backpack weighs less than mine even with his luxury item—a hairdryer.  I told him I would pray for him to make the right decision about his future.

A clump of pilgrims had gathered at the cafe in Revolta, the last point of sustenance before a steep climb.  It was a true Camino ascent, with rocky paths going up at 45-degree angles, or probably 75, in and out of the sun, then turning to rocky ledges going up through steep grassy slopes under tall trees. 

Many of the trees had yellow bags attached to them, which turned out to be for pine resin collection. 

Finally, at the top, were flat rocks to rest on and a view to the valley below.  A little farther back cool spring water, for the refreshment of pilgrims or anyone else, was pouring into huge basins. 

Farther along still an enterprising couple had set up a generator and cafe truck serving cold drinks and a few hot snacks.  We sat right down and had omelets. 

The beginning of the descent was difficult with loose rock (and still more ups) but we managed with our trusty poles as the landscape calmed down again into grapevine-ringed farms and lanes along stone walls.

The municipal albergue in Rubiaes had only two mats left on what looked like a classroom floor, which wasn’t particularly appealing.  The Portuguese-only-speaking lady who ran the place eventually sent me across the road past the snack bar and through a small barnyard to find Sonia, who was happy to see me and had two bunks left in her private albergue, the particle board divided basement of the newish building where the family lives upstairs.  One side of the basement had a spacious room with bunks along the walls.  Our side had a few snug quads (the whole section may have been an afterthought).  In between was a pleasant if small area with two sinks and doors leading to men’s and women’s toilets and showers, one each (no place to keep your things dry—as is often the case—but plenty of hot water).  We had the far corner of the quad section with just two bunks and no reason for anyone else to walk down the corridor that far so it was fairly private if cramped.  Each bunk had an outlet AND a light and the top bunk was high enough that people could sit on the edge of the bottom bunk without bumping their heads, so all in all it was a reasonable arrangement for twelve euros apiece.

My legs and feet ache but after a rest I walked—that is, I floated without my pack!—a half kilometer back to see a little Romanesque church we had passed.  Most of the carving was well worn or replaced with plain structures and a mass was going on inside so I just sat outside on a shady wall by the graveyard and wrote for a while.

Dinner was another half kilometer down the road in the other direction.  It was the only game in town, cheerfully noisy and busy, and, with his higher-than-typical pilgrim menu prices, the owner must be raking it in, with not only the local albergues providing customers but also outlying B&Bs bringing their guests by van.  Shortly after Maurice and I sat down—and before the wonderful first course Portuguese soup was served—Frederick appeared and joined us for dinner.  What a fine young man he is, and we pray God’s best for him.