For those of you who walked the Camino Portuguese Tour in April, you’ll remember Catarina with enormous affection.

Beautiful, wild, crazy, generous, funny – did I say beautiful? – she drove our van and attended our petty needs and made the tour very special for all of us.

When we said goodbye to her in Santiago, we all felt very sad – as though we were saying goodbye to a dear friend. Which is what she’d become to us.

Catarina is a qualified lawyer, studying with the long term aim to become a judge. She’s a smart cookie.

The highlight of our tour with her was when we got to Santiago and she parked the Mercedes van in “…the best spot, Bill. You would not believe what a great parking spot I found. I couldn’t believe my luck!”

The following morning I was sitting in a coffee shop having breakfast with Jennifer and I casually looked out the front window and noticed that several police cars were in the square nearby, supervising a large tow truck that was, yes, towing our van.

Yep Catarina, that was the best parking spot!!

I hadn’t heard from Catarina for a while because she’s had her head down studying, but I woke up to find a delightful text from her. So we exchanged SMSs, which became very silly…

Here is Catarina:

 And here are the texts: