A fantastic day on the Camino. I set up earlyish but not pre-dawn. The low hanging mist of the early morning was very atmospheric.
The town was very still and quiet. I didn’t encounter another pilgrim until well past Ponte De Lima. Quite quickly, the landscape became beautiful stone walled fields and oak trees. Things were due to be pretty flat until about half way, when I would need to scale a steep hill. This would actually be the highest elevation point on the whole Camino Portugues. The guide said it would be about 300m of vertical elevation gain, which is a fair bit more than most of the hills I am used to going up on the South Downs. I was pretty confident that I would make it up, but my fitness being what it is I knew I would need to pace myself and make sure I wasn’t over cooking.
There was intermittent rain, which I knew was on the cards from the forecast. Even so, I hadn’t packed my bag in such a way that didn’t put key items at a certain amount of risk from the dampness. Specifically, my passport, pilgrim ‘credenciales’ and wallet…luckily nothing got majorly sodden.
The further I walked the more peregrinos I caught up with, and wished them a ‘Buen Camino’ as I passed by. It really did feel like I was finally actually on the Camino, rather than just dabbling around the edges.
My destination was Rubiaes, which I reached by about 12:30. There were three hostel options, each within a stones throw of each other. I opted for the one that came ‘highly recommended’ called something like ‘Albergue De Ninho’, run by a very nice Portuguese lady called Marlene. Check in didn’t open until 2pm, so I walked back up the route a bit to a cafe I had passed on the way into the village.
After a beer, a pasty and a good sit down, I went back to the hostel and was able to get comfortable. The climb to the top of the hill was very tiring, but I was surprised at how my muscle memory kicked in, including on the descent after the top. One thing that years of walking in Sussex has done (I think) is give me good practice at getting down steep slopes fairly quickly.
More and more pilgrims turned up at the hostel as the afternoon went on; an Italian guy called ‘Danele’, a German lady called Annette and a British guy called Andy. I had a very good chat with Andy, who is a recently retired Royal Air Force medic/doctor at the age of only 47ish. He has done a very extensive amount of the Camino routes this year already. He was a very easy guy to talk to, and clearly has decided that he’d rather live simply on his RAF pension than carry on in a stressful career. He clearly has other means by which to support himself and/or financial security, but plenty of people have all of that and still carry on working in a job even when they unhappy and unhealthy.
We all went to the local restaurant for dinner, joined by more Germans; this time a mother and daughter pair, Anya and Elena. I would struggle to do this sort of thing with some of my closest friends (due to my foibles not anything else) let alone my family, so was very impressed that these two had the kind of relationship where they could undertake the Camino together.
Dinner is as the familiar format; soup, a main meal (this time I opened for pork) with chip AND rice, and a few glasses of local red wine. We also ordered some white port as a ‘degestif’ on my suggestion.
Back at the hostel, most of us stayed up chatting a bit longer. I talked a bit about what I do for work, which actually brought home to me how far away all that stuff now feels.
One Step Bey0nd 