Day: 21 May 2017

Well, we are not in Portomarin, even though we did walk there today.  We are back in our palatial suite in Sarria.  There was apparently no suitable accommodation available in Portomarin when we booked, so the agent arranged for us to get a cab back to our hotel in Sarria. The same driver will get us back there tomorrow.

Again, riding with a Spanish cab driver on the open road is a cheap Formula One experience.  She undid 7 hours of walking in 17 minutes.  I’m sure she pulled 2Gs on some of the corners.  The ones when she wasn’t talking on the cell phone, that is.

We did this part of the Camino 12 years ago with Bob and Liz, so some things look familiar.  The first few minutes were really crowded with tour groups leaving at the same time as we did.  To get a Compostella you have to walk at least 100 km, and Sarria is the first big town at 113 km, so bus loads of tourists arrive to do the short walk (sneer).  They mostly peeled off at the 5 km mark into the first bar complex, and things thinned out after that. Later in the day we were virtually alone again.

In Galicia the Camino turns into a cow path – not a small path, just a path used to move cows from pasture to milking.  The path is often covered with all too fresh cow manure, accompanied by clouds of flies feeding on the good bits.

It was a long walk with a couple stops.  At one we were able to get our first feed of Padron peppers.  We are getting closer!

We arrived at Portomarin at about 3:30 after some 7 hours of walking, nearly 24 km, and about 158 floors of altitude gain (and most of it lost again).  Portomarin was to be inundated in 1956 by a hydro dam installation, so they moved the whole town up the hill, including the church, numbered stone block by block.  The church looks more like a fortress, and is very plain and unadorned inside. I’m assuming they got all the blocks back in the right places.

Portomarin was an important bridge crossing since before Roman times.  The modern bridge is long and low, and ends in a long stairway to get to the town.  Because of the deep river valley the descent to the bridge was long and painful.  Tomorrow, there is an equally long climb out of the valley – some 320 m followed by an even longer hike than today.  We will be exhausted.

Tonight we could find the energy to walk out our front door  for dinner, and got caught up in the Sunday evening mothers-with-strollers get together on the promenade.  Sunday evening show off, I guess.

It dawned clear and cool, so it could be a nice walking day.  There are two routes to Sarria, the longer one passes by the active Benedictine monastary at Samos, and is a popular stop.  We took the shorter route.  It started with the obligatory uphill grind to get out of the valley that Triacastela is in.

The first couple of towns that we passed through did not have active coffee bars, and by 10:30 things were getting desparate when we happened on a pop-up coffee stop.  Someone had opened an old stone barn, set out all manner of food and goodies, and was serving coffee “free” , with the presence of a “donation” box.

We were just enjoying our coffee when the police showed up to discuss business practices with the operator.  He appeared to be Spanish, certainly fluent in Spanish, but the helpers were from Melbourne.  We left soon after, before we could be held as material wittnesses.

The majority of the trails for the day were gravel trails through forest, for very pleasant walking.  Once again in early afternoon we crested a ridge, and could see our destination of the day, wa-a-a-y down there in the valley.  The rest of the day was downhill, bearing on all of those pressure points from yesterday.

The hotel here is right on the promenade along the river.  There are a bunch of resturants catering to the Saturday afternoon/evening strollers.  We are in a third floor suite with a kitchen, dining area, and balcony.  It is a change from some of the rooms we have had that did not have enough floor area to put the luggage on.