Friday May 24, 2019

Valença, Portugal, to Porriño, Spain—Day 9; 32.627 steps

Proverbs 9

v. 9  Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still; teach the righteous and they will add to their learning.  At dinner Gisela was showing us some of her pictures and commenting on the equivalent of how many flights they had walked up.  She touched her phone screen and showed me a little graph counting her steps, then touched it again and there was a list of kilometers, steps and flights climbed in a day.  Her phone had been tracking it all.  I was impressed, then noticed she had an iphone.  “Will my phone do that?” I asked.  “Of course!” Gisela answered, and showed me how to find the info.  To my amazement, my phone’s been monitoring me all along.  The steps don’t exactly match the mechanical pedometer I have in my pocket, but I don’t have the phone with me every step in an albergue.  Gisela also uses WhatsApp to post daily pictures that disappear in 24 hours but I’ll need a little more time to master that one (not that I need another tech thing to do).  I can see my boys shaking their heads over me and this step monitoring. Chris told us once that we are typical old people with technology but I just brush that off, as I have friends who think I’m a tech expert.  You just never know what you might learn on the Camino.  Thank you, Lord, for setting people in my path to teach me and make me wiser still.

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Last night’s albergue “pillow” was more like a sofa cushion, rectangular and hard.  I tried using my clothing bag for a pillow but it was almost as hard plus it made that noisy plasticky sound whenever I moved.

The woman across from us by the bathroom was French—delicate skin with wavy red hair, minimal pack, sitting late last night at the picnic table out back drinking beer with a couple gentlemen, slipping into bed silently in the dark, lying in bed playing with her phone as everyone else got ready in the morning, then suddenly up and out and gone.

The man in the bed next to us was Japanese.  He had walked the Camino Frances (the one we did before) divided into the last two years and this year he is doing the Portugues.  He knew the beautiful area of Nikko that Maurice remembered from his R&R in Japan when he served in Vietnam.

We were out this morning at 7:35 but shortly lost an hour when we crossed the bridge into Spain. 

The town of Tui was lovely and historic and the cathedral promised a visit from crypt to cloister to roof (I was salivating!) but, of course, this being Spain, nothing opens until the day is half over and we couldn’t stay. 

We met a Canadian family in town excited to be starting their Camino.  The three girls Enna, Emily and Elise (who had just turned eight last week) each had their own credencial and were eager to collect stamps.  Out of town we caught up with them again.  They were in month nine of a one-year trip around the world and had decided on the spur of the moment to walk the Caminho Portugues, starting in Tui, just over 100 kilometers from Santiago, the closest you can start and still get a compostela.  Mom LeeAnn had booked everything in two days, Dad Steve was carrying a pack and they were having a big suitcase transported from place to place.  They were hoping they could actually do this, as the daily walk was a little farther than what they were used to.  We walked with them a while and got the scoop on the highlights of their trip.  They all learned Spanish during several months in South America.

At last a bar, and Maurice and I stopped.  I asked if they had omelets and the lady said si but what she gave me instead was a wedge of tortilla, which is OK since we haven’t been eating them all through Portugal.  Maurice likes the tortillas but I think they’re crammed with too many potatoes.  Soon Michael from Ireland appeared and sat with us.  He told us about research he did in his younger days at a prison outside Chicago.

We walked and walked and walked some more, through towns and woods and countryside.  Our guidebook warned of a deadly slog through an industrial area into Porriño and recommended an alternative but slightly longer riverside walk.  It was a delightful wooded path right next to a winding river, clear but verdant with long underwater grass that stretched along the currents like green tresses and that sprouted tiny white flowers in the sunshine. 

At one spot I heard hearty croaking.  I stopped and looked down the riverbank.  Blending into a mat of grass, visible only when they moved, several frogs were hopping merrily. 

We were not quite so energetic.  A couple from South Africa overtook us.  They were tired too.

At 3:00 we arrived at Alojamiento Camino Portgues where we had reserved ahead—a double room—with sheets!  Two beds and a radiator were about all that was in the room, though, and a locker and a screenless window with a nice breeze that kept making the door slam until Maurice put a shoe in it. 

The Canadians were across the hall, finished before us, though they missed the last riverside turn.  The girls looked none the worse for wear; I think they’ll make it.  Irish Michael is here too, in the dorm downstairs, where every bunk has a curtain.  For twelve euros each it’s a nice enough albergue, with a kitchen and a big enclosed terrace to keep away the evening and morning chill, but there’s not much privacy in the women’s showers.  And you have to go outside, around the corner, through a metal door and down a dangerous set of stairs to get into the dusty weed-filled yard to hang out your clothes.  And who invents these dreadful laundry facilities?  Most albergues have a contraption with a washboard slanted into a deep tub.  The washboard is OK if you use that sort of thing, but you have to bend over the tub and reach almost to the ground to deal with the wet clothing in it.  For extra fun the faucet arrangement is usually something that splashes whatever part of you wasn’t already wet.  This albergue has a little room with the washboard contraption built into a corner, but someone has tried to improve on the tub by placing a plastic chair in it to support a round shallow pan, so you don’t have to bend quite as far.  The side of the tub is broad enough to sit on with minimal pain but the splashy faucet is short and awkwardly placed on the back wall.  Perhaps to make up for the unpleasant washing and drying facilities, in the enclosed terrace there is a beautiful long granite counter for folding.

We found a pilgrim meal in an outdoor restaurant on a sunny pedestrian plaza where Spanish families were strolling and children were playing, running, riding bikes and kicking soccer balls—the Spanish evening activity that goes on long past when we think children ought to be in bed.  We shared our dinner table with two women from Dresden retired from the hotel business.  Anna’s husband had left her for another woman (whom he lives with in their same town) and Gisela’s husband had left her for a man.  Anna and Gisela, walking the Caminho Portugues together, enjoyed learning new words in our conversation to improve their already-good English.  Gisela pointed out the price of a glass of beer here is half what it is in Germany. 

When we got back to the albergue and had trouble with the combination lock, one of the two smokers lurking at the door jumped up to help.  It was the four-beer-lunch guys!  We’d seen them for several days and they were at our albergue too.  German, I think, but after Raik I’m not going to prejudge them.