I woke up feeling really ready to do a proper day of walking. I left the hostel in Vila Do Conde nice and early, and picked up the trail of the Camino in town. the first hour was a very straight route north through the suburbs up to a place called Povoa De Varzim.
The path then merged with the seaside ‘promenade’ similar to the sections I have already done between Porto and Vila Do Conde (well the bits I actually walked…).
By the time that I was out the other side of Povoa De Varzim, I realised that my feet were in a bit of bother. My two little toes were in a lot of pain, particularly the left one. I had to stop to assess the damage, and took the opportunity to do a cull of the stuff I had in my pack as well. Unfortunately, it felt necessary to jettison a pair of grey shorts, a black cotton t shirt (both of which I had brought with me from home) and a pair of swimming shorts that I had bought from Decathlon in Porto. It is undoubtedly wasteful to just dump these into a nearby rubbish bin; a clothes recycling bin would have felt less bad.
In terms of dealing with the foot situation, I decided to give up on the boots and switch to my flip flops. This, I knew, would open myself to other issues, not least of which would be new blisters and possibly shin splints or other types of injuries. Needless to say, flip flops are not designed to be worn during longer distances walks with a fully loaded pack, but it was either switch to the flip flops or just pack it in for the day and get a taxi to the end point. It felt as though there would be no major harm to seeing how things went with the flip flops for a few kms.
And things went surprisingly well. There was a bit more promenade before the trail turned into boardwalk paths (same stuff as I had done north of Matoshinos on Day 2). I felt good to be free of the pain on my toes, and I zealously bashed out a pretty strong pace. Things went downhill (not literally as today was pan flat elevation wise) when the boardwalks finished and I had to walk along cobbles/gravelling tracks. I could tell that the pad on my left food was not enjoying things anymore, and this only got worse. My intended stopping point for the day was Esponsende, but I only managed as far as a town called Fao which was about 4km short. Either way, my idea was always going to be to take a taxi inland to Barcelos at the end of the day’s walking, so I called it quits and ordered a Bolt. It felt like a bit of a defeat, but a battle had to be ‘lost’ to hopefully win the ‘war’ of the Camino as a whole. In truth, these first few days have taught me that I am consciously or subconsciously not approaching this journey as a Camino in the sense I had done on the Via De La Plata/Camino Sanabres. More important to me right now than trying to follow a specific path from start to finish is to enjoy being somewhere new each day, and yes I want most of the days I have on this trip to be about walking the trail, but some days have to be repurposed in what seems like the right way at the time.
I got to my pre-booked guesthouse in Barcelos but the reception wasn’t open (it being only about 13:00). I hobbled down the street to a small restaurant and had a fairly ropey plate of grilled chicken, chips AND rice. The rest of the day was really just about patching up my feet as best I could once I got into my room. My little toes were very red and raw, and I popped a sizeable blister on the sole of my left foot. Considering I had walked about 16km (out of about 21km) in flip flops, I counted myself lucky I didn’t have more major ailments. I resolved that I would have no chance of doing any more actual walking (other than hobbling about) until my current blisters had healed a bit and I had a thinner pair of insoles for my boots. I also needed to do laundry. A lot of ideas were swimming around in my head about what my next overall plan could be, but a salient thing to come out of talking to the Belgian guy Stephen was that I want to make it to Finisterre (as he had said it was really worth doing). This would mean not walking the entire way from Barcelos to Santiago, as that alone would take 9 walking days (possibly 10) and then from Santiago to Finisterre would be 3/4 days walking, and with a rest day tomorrow (Day 5) I would only have 12 days to play with so I am back in Santiago in time for my hotel reservation (which I have to keep to as it’s non-cancellable).
My mood ended up being fairly ‘buoyant’ in the evening despite the set backs. It feels good to be away from the somewhat built up coastal area and into something a bit more foresty/hilly.
One Step Bey0nd 