Today was a rest day – and I think we all appreciated it.

Donna woke up with a burgeoning chest infection, and Caterina whisked her away to a doctor. By mid afternoon she was feeling much better.

The famous Barcelos markets were on – the hotel was situated right opposite – and so after breakfast we wandered over and explored.

Barcelos is famous for it’s chicken and poultry – the symbol of the district is the cock.

Whooosh –
That’s the sound of that one going through to the keeper….

The market sold all sorts of things –

Note to Barcelos Health Department – please ask this lady not to pick her nose while she’s holding a cock…

Caterina then began a shuttle in the Mercedes van, transporting the group over to Bom Jesus.

Just to explain – we’re leaving the Camino for one day to spend the afternoon/night at Bom Jesus, which is truly spectacular. It’s about 25km from Barcelos – a magnificent church on a mountain looking out over Braga. There are a couple of luxury hotels situated beside the church, and we’re staying in the best one.

There’s a beautiful terrace looking out over the view – which is where everyone convened for a late lunch and drinks.

While Caterina took Peter & Julie and Ken & Angie up to Bom Jesus, Jennifer and I had lunch with Steve and Arlene – a pilgrim’s lunch for €10 which was delicious – then we went for a wander into the old part of Barcelos, overlooking the river.

We had coffee overlooking the river – and Steve gave us a pose…

Marie the Basque, however, decided that she wanted to keep walking, and so she headed off this morning following the Camino. Her intention was to to walk a good way up the Camino towards Ponte de Lima – where we’re staying tomorrow tonight. She wanted to reduce her mileage tomorrow. Tomorrow’s walk is the longest of the trip – 34kms.

Marie later in the day phoned to say that she’d done about 17kms, and so we arranged for a cab to pick her up and bring her to our hotel.

I can’t believe that today is only day 3. It seems that we’ve experienced so much in such a short period of time. Everyone is getting on really well – and we’re spending a lot of time laughing.

Tomorrow is a big walk but some of the group will start part way up the Camino and cut their walk from 34kms to 20kms.

I want to do the full distance, and so do a few others.

There’s no macho stuff here, no competition – everyone respects everyone else’s personal approach to this Camino.

Whether they van it part of the way, or whether they walk the whole way, really it doesn’t matter. We’re all having a good time, enjoying each other’s company, eating wonderful food, staying in nice digs, and we’re all pilgrims.

Speaking of which, the hotel gave us a very romantic room with a double bed tonight…

Why do I make life so difficult?

 First, let me admit to a clerical typing error.

In the itinerary, I said today was going to be 18kms. An easy walk after yesterday’s 25-26kms.

Actually, I realised to my horror that today’s walk was going to be 30kms.

How did this happen? I can proffer numerous reasons – I’d prefer not to use the word “excuses” because that confers an element of liability – but needless to say when I announced this to the tour group last night, I was met with stunned silence.

Probably because I referred to it as a “data entry miscalculation.”

I’d timed my announcement after everyone had had at least two glasses of wine – hoping their slight inebriation would dull their senses – but they were onto me straight away, of course.

Angie asked cuttingly: Have you made any other “data entry misevaluations Bill?”

I told her evasively I’d get back to her on that one…

We decided to leave early the next morning, given that we had to walk such a long distance. I left at 7:30am, and went straight to the ATM machine to pull out some cash. This should have been my first warning.

Instead of using my cash-loaded Travel Card, I used my credit card by mistake. Which means I’m up fort a bucket load of bank fees. This should have alerted me to the fact that I hadn’t yet engaged my brain in meaningful and useful activity, like figuring out where to begin the day’s walk.

I checked the map of the route, which had me crossing the bridge, turning right, and following the river for several kilometres.

So that’s what I did – I crossed the bridge, I turned right, and I followed the river for several kilometres. I even had a bunch of yellow arrows to assure me that I was going the right way – even if some of them were on mobile garbage bins.

I was starting to feel good – even though I’d only had instant coffee from an urn in the hotel’s breakfast room before I left. In retrospect, I lay blame there…

I did though take some nice shots…

But then three things happened.

1. The yellow arrows disappeared.
2. The river disappeared. Or at least, it turned into a large puddle.
3. I saw a road sign to Porto.

I’d walked from Porto two days ago. I like the place a lot, but I didn’t want to walk back.

I was going the wrong way.

I looked again at the map. Yes, cross the bridge, turn right, and follow the river. That’s what I’d done.

But hold on a minute….

You were on the north side of the river, not the south side, you moron.

I turned the map upside down, and then it all made sense. Instead of crossing the bridge and turning right, I should have not crossed the bridge and turned left. 

The instant coffee from the urn had totally stuffed things up. I’d been walking for about 45 minutes, which means I’d walked about 3 kilometres. And now I had to walk 3 kilometres back again.

On a day when I had to walk 30 kms, to have to walk an extra 6 kms because I’d ingested bad coffee was not very uplifting. You’ll note here that I refuse to accept responsibility for my stupidity, I lay all the blame at the feet of Nescafe…

So I dutifully walked back, got to the bridge, crossed it, turned right, and headed off – now one and a half hours later, with a deficit of 6kms.

 After walking for a further 5kms or so, I found a coffee shop and went in and ordered a proper espresso coffee, along with a Coke Zero with ice.

There was a pretty girl sitting behind me. She was staring at me. Why would she stare at me, I wondered. She was young, and very pretty. Surely she was not trying to ht on me.

And then I noticed something akin to disapproval in her stare. Did she think drinking espresso and Coke Zero with ice was gross?

Actually, I realised that she wasn’t exactly staring at me, she was staring at my backpack, on which I’d affixed my Bonds Comfy Undies to get them dry. They were splayed out on the dirty floor…

i downed the drinks fast and headed back out again.

I saw a pilgrim up ahead. I caught up with her, and we chatted. Her name was Sandra, and she was from Germany.

She’d stayed at the fire station in Vila do Conde the previous night – because she was a pilgrim there was no charge, nor did they charge her for the meal they cooked, and the beer they provided.

I told her to drop in at Caterina’s mum’s house – Villa d’Arcos – about 7kms further up the Camino. We had arranged to have morning tea there, and she could join us.

She moved on ahead, and I stayed back and took some more shots.

Caterina’s mother, Belmira, put on a fabulous spread. She told me that most of the group had been and gone. Because I was running an hour and a half behind, there was no way I could catch up to them.

Little did I know that they would take a wrong turn not long after leaving Arcos, and they would – like me – get horribly lost.

I went into an old Roman church not far from Arcos, in part because I’d now walked about 21kms, and i was tired and sore. The church inside was very simple, but it had an energy, a power, that was palpable.

Sitting in a pew, I began to ask myself some questions:

• Why am I doing this tour?
• Was Jesus just a wise young man with a lot of charism?
• How come I say I’m not religious and yet I always come in and sit in churches and ask myself questions which can never be answered?

A strange thing happened. I put my sunglasses back on, about to leave, and the heat from my body fogged the lenses. Everything around me suddenly shifted into another dimension. It was ethereal.

Yes I was exhausted, yes I was merely looking at everything through fogged up sunnies, but it was more than that. I was somewhere else. Time stood still. I couldn’t see anything other than the cross against a sliver of light from a window behind. It was transcendent.

It freaked me out. I took off my sunnies and quickly left.

I’d left Arcos without a water bottle. I’d given mine to Jennifer, because she’d been vomiting and she needed hydration. But I was now three hours from Arcos, walking in the hot sun in the middle of the day, and I was getting thirsty.

No, I wasn’t getting thirsty, I was getting desperately thirsty.

I kept walking around bends in the track, hoping to see a store or a cafe – but there was nothing. I walked another hour – four hours now since I’d had a drink, and I was starting to feel very woozy.

There’d been no villages, no stores, not even any taps in someone’s front yard where i could sneak in and gulp down some water.

I was starting to get worried. I was walking through the heat of the day, and I was beginning to suffer from dehydration.

Then I saw, as if a mirage, a house in the woods. It was a modern house, and there were some men outside doing some painting.

I walked over, and asked if I could get some water.

They looked at me oddly, as if asking themselves: Why would this bloke who looks like a serious pilgrim not have any water?

One of the young painters gestured to me to follow him inside into the house. There he went to a refrigerator, and pulled out a cold bottle of water. I gulped it down, thankfully, then he gave me some more. And he refused payment.

I walked off with my newly acquired water bottle full to the brim.

Today’s walk was largely over cobblestones or on roads. Hard surfaces. I’d estimate 90% of today’s walk was on hard surfaces. My feet were getting very sore.

I got a call from Caterina – a few more of the group had got lost. They were going to use the van to go through to Barcelos, where we were due to spend the night.

I kept walking. I was taking some nice shots.

But when I saw a cafe I decided that after 7hrs walking without a break, other than that time in the church and the early coffee with the Comfy Undies moment, it was time to sit down for a while.

I ordered two Coke Zeros, with ice – and a large bottle of water. I was still dehydrated.

It turned out I’d stopped at a famous haunt – run by Antionio. There was a pilgrim sitting inside and we had a chat. Her name was Cathy and she was from America. Virginia.

As we talked I saw Jennifer walking past, and I yelled out to her.

She’d walked all the way from Arcos – some 15kms or so, and was feeling much better. We decided to walk together into Barcelos, which was still another 9kms away.

I then broached a subject which I’d been considering while walking alone –

Me: Sweetheart, I’ve decided that for the duration of this pilgrimage, I’m going to remain celibate. I think that’s what a pilgrim should do.

Jen: (dryly) Suits me.

Me: (hurt) That’s not exactly the kind of response I was wanting.

Jen: (indifferently) Exactly what kind of response were you wanting Bill?

Me: (pathetically) I was wanting something like – Gee Bill, do you really think that’s necessary? I mean, I think you should seriously rethink that one…

Jen: (says nothing, merely stares at me…)

Me; (quickly) Or words to that effect…

Jen: (again, dryly) This is why I like walking alone…

We walked into Barcelos – across the bridge and into the old part of town. I ended up walking 36kms – Jennifer 20kms. We were both tired and sore.

We went out to dinner at my favourite Barcelos chicken joint, and we all had a great feed.

Coming back into the room after dinner, I realised we’d been given twin beds.

Me: (grumbling) They should have given us a double…

Jen: (smiling) Pilgrim…

In the photo above, in last night’s post, I said Greg and Debbie got a little lost in a bar.

Actually it’s Greg and Donna.

I was very tired lat night, and didn’t end up publishing that post until just before midnight – so I apologise for the mistake. I’ve gone back and corrected it.

Also the comments you’re all making are fabulous, thank you – and we all read them avidly.

There will be times on this Camino when it might take me a few days to reply, but I will reply – it might just not be straight away, because the demands on my time are quite acute.

We’re all having a really great time. It’s a wonderful bunch of people. That’s what’s making this very special.

Also, for that bloke on the beach having sex – and thinking I’m a pervert – here’s a photo just for you mate…

We’ve just had dinner at one of the finest seafood restaurants in all of Porto – a small place right opposite the docks, where they cook your meal over hot coals on a grill out on the street.

And walking back to the hotel, it hit me hard that tomorrow morning we start walking the Portuguese Camino de Santiago.

With all the good eating and the swish hotels and the cabs here and the Mercedes van there, it’s easy to forget that we’re about to start a pilgrimage tomorrow. We’ll be setting off on the way of St. James.

St. James has a particular connection to Portugal which I’ll talk about during the coming days…

I reiterate here though that I’m not a Catholic, and I’m not even religious in the conventional sense. But I do feel keenly the significance of what we, or rather I, am about to undertake. I say “I” because I can’t speak for the others on this. Each will walk for their own reasons. Which is how it should be.

For me, this has been a difficult period leading up to the walk. I’ve had work commitments which have interrupted my training, and so I don’t feel as physically prepared as I was this time last year.

As well, I’ll be walking with a knee brace this time. I’m unsure how my knee will hold up doing long miles day after day.

Mentally – or spiritually – I don’t feel as well prepared either. The tour has taken an inordinate amount of organising – more than would be apparent if you just looked at the itinerary – and so it’s inhabited the space in my brain that by rights should have been set aside for initialising into the Way.

Tomorrow I begin a pilgrimage – tour leader or no – and so when I wake in the morning, I will be a pilgrim, setting off on The Way.

A few things about today:

• Catarina joined us, and brought a wonderful sunny clean energy into the group with her arrival.
• We picked up the van – a brand new Mercedes Benz eight seater. To be driven by Catarina, it will shadow us along the way.
• We moved into the Porto Mar Hotel, in Matosinhos down by the docks of Porto – and close to the start of the coastal route.
• 
• I held the first photo tutorial, and talked about the importance of ISO selection. The first fundamental decision you need to make before you take any photo, is deciding what your ISO setting should be.
• We had dinner at one of Porto’s finest seafood restaurants and Steve showed us pictures of himself as a champion body builder.
• Then he showed us pictures of Jill, his ex wife…
• We walked back to the hotel in a thin fog, and passed a wall covered in scallop shells.
• 
• Greg used his newly acquired knowledge from the first Photo tutorial, and took photos using high ISO.
• I was very proud of him…

We’re complete now.

Coming down into the lobby this morning, I heard – Bill! –and was greeted by Peter and his wife Julie, and their two friends Ken and Angie.

This now makes our complete group.

Peter and Julie started their Camino four days ago, from a town just north of Lisbon. So they’ve already walked a long way to get here. They looked super fit – and with their backpacks and poles and Camino shine, they looked like serious pilgrims.

I’d last seen them in Zubiri, on day two of the Camino Frances last year. It was wonderful to see them again. And great to meet Ken and Angie. This will be their first Camino, yet they’ve been doing some very serious training in preparation.

Ken has a sly sense of humour that coldcocks you from behind. I’ll have to be on my guard when I’m around him…

I stepped outside the hotel to take a phone call, and I noticed this young man who was obviously smacked out of his brain trying to scam a pretty young lady. I’d seen this girl earlier – she was a pilgrim on the Camino, and she was having trouble getting rid of this bloke.

I wandered over and gave him €5. He was effusive in his thanks to me. He thought that this was an act of chivalry so that I could hook up with the pretty girl. He asked where I was from – I told him Australia – and he then proceeded to tell me that Australia made the best party drugs in the world.

I asked if I could take his photo –

Then as he walked away he yelled back at me and posed for a second photo –

 I walked back into the hotel, met up with Peter & Julie, Ken & Angie, and we went out and had coffee.

The waiter offered to take our photo. I instructed him carefully – even pre-focused and took a preview test shot of him sitting in for me, to show him the correct composition with proper head room, but of course he made a complete botch of it.

Here is his first attempt.

 See? Too much head room. And I’d specifically told him about head room.

But he was trying to frame for the buildings in the background. He saw himself as something of an artist, it turned out. Big mistake. I told him that no-one was interested in the buildings behind, they were interested in the people in front – and he’d given us too much headroom. Wasted space in the frame.

He tried again.

Here is his second shot.

 Again, totally unacceptable…  Too LITTLE head room this time. Again I took a shot of him sitting in for me, and told him why I’d framed it the way I had.

This is the correct amount of headroom. How hard is that? Jeeeeees. I mean, ok, the guy is just serving us coffee – but, if you’re going to take a photo, take it properly. Please.

Here is his final attempt.

 This is ok. Not great, but ok. The framing is still a bit how’s-your-father, but it’s acceptable.

Meanwhile, my new pilgrims who have just joined the tour, and have just met me, think I’m a complete and utter dick. A total control freak.

Thing is, Greg – of Greg and Donna fame – Greg who runs a pool business in Brisbane – Greg is smart. Greg has got my measure. You see, we left the hotel to head off to dinner, and I took a slightly circuitous route. I went up the hill, round the corner, along a street, and down the hill. I’d forgotten which way to go…

We’re standing at the lights, and Greg taps me on the shoulder and says: Bill, we’ve just come a full circle. Why didn’t we just go down the hill and turn left. Instead of going all that way up the hill, turning right, turning right again, going down the hill, and turning left.

If we were in the army this would be deemed insubordination.

I explained to him that it was my surreptitious way of getting us in training for the Camino, going up the hill and walking around the block, and that in fact instead of him pinning me with an implied criticism, he should be thanking me for making him a little bit fitter.

But I suspect he didn’t buy it.

Like I said, Greg is smart. I can see that I can’t fool Greg. Damn. I’m going to have to watch him. He has the potential to be traitorous. I think he sees me as a Captain Queeg.

The thing about leadership, you have to do everything with bold intent.

Even if you’re wrong.

Even if you’re lost.

Even if you can’t add up.

We ate out tonight at Pedros dos Frangos, the famous Portuguese chicken joint. The bill came, and it was €112. The tour hasn’t officially started yet – it starts tomorrow – so we’d decided to split the bill evenly. Twelve of us, that makes €10 a head, leaving a tip.

Everyone chucked in €10 and I counted out the pile of cash and it came to €110. We were €10 short.

Someone hadn’t coughed up their €10. Perhaps they hadn’t heard, so I asked in a very commanding voice who hadn’t paid. I got these glares back from everyone thinking that I was accusing them of trying to shimmy out of coughing up €10.

And then Peter, who is a very successful accountant – a numbers guy – (and is unfortunately also a Hawthorne supporter but despite that, still a very nice bloke) – informed me that no-one had piked out on their €10, there were only 11 of us – so everyone had actually paid.

Then I remembered – Catarina wasn’t joining us till tomorrow.

If I hadn’t looked like a dick before, then I certainly did now.

We retired to the hotel bar and I ordered Port. I got the numbers wrong again and we got an extra glass. I shared it with Angie. It was arguable who needed it more, her or me.

( this was meant to be published last night, but the wifi went down in this hotel. It’s now 4:30am Sunday here… )!

This internet world is very seriously weird.

Today I met Steve and Arlene for the very first time, and yet I felt as though I’d known them for years – we’ve corresponded so often and so regularly on this blog…

I also met Greg and Donna, whom I HAVE met before, back in Brisbane Australia. And I also met Marie-Dominic, from the Basque Country. (she refers to herself as Marie the Basque!) Jennifer and I spent some time with her in Santiago late last year.

It was wonderful to finally all meet up – although as a group we’re still not complete.

Tomorrow we meet the remaining two couples – Peter & Julie and Ken & Angela.

Peter & Julie I met on the slopes of the Pyrenees this time last year, and we very quickly became friends, bonding in the shock of a shared experience. Ken and Angela I’ve not met before – yet we’ve spoken on the phone and they sound like a delightful couple.

Already there seems to be a very strong sense of camaraderie between us all.

Steve and Arlene arrived first – and literally bumped into Jennifer of the lobby of the hotel. I came down and met them both – and my first impression was that they both looked so damn fit and healthy!

Steve is a champion bodybuilder, as most of you already know, and I went to give him a hug and it was like hugging a bag of cement. This guy is early 70s and has the physique of a 26 year old.

Arlene shone like a shiny thing – beautiful and radiant.

We all went to a coffee shop and the first thing I did was challenge Steve to an arm wrestle.

Note his bicep compared to mine.

I let him win.

(That just goes to show what a good pilgrim I am…)

Later we met up with Marie Basque – who was as equally beautiful and shiny radiant as Arlene – (what is it about these Camino women??) – and then we went out to dinner – later joined for coffee by Greg and Donna, who’d eaten very well at a restaurant near the start of the Camino down by the river.

Even though they were tired from a long flight from Australia (with a one day stopover in London) nonetheless their weeks of training have paid handsome dividends – they both looked way younger and fitter than when I last saw them in Brisbane, before they’d taken the big plunge and decided to do this pilgrimage walk.

Well into the evening now, after dinner, and seven of us sitting around a table in a small cafe, talking with an ease and conviviality that completely belied the time we’d actually all spent together – perhaps all of two hours.

Tomorrow we meet up with Peter & Julie, and Angela and Ken. Then we’ll have a quorum. A  Camino quorum. Won’t that be cool!

I’m too exhausted to write.

I won’t be able to think straight.

I won’t be able to write straight.

See? That’s bad grammer. It should be, “I won’t be able to write straightly….”

Or is it “grammar?” Not “grammer?”

Im exhausted and I haven’t walked a kilometre. Or is it kilometer? What will I be like next wee, when I have to walk 25kms + every day.

I’m putting in typos. I never typo. I’m always so particular about typos. And correcting auto-correct when it goes psycho on me.Like now. It didn’t space there. And I still don’t know whether is an “e” or an “a” in grammar….

If I wash;t so tired I would know there things. I would look them up. I’ve become lazy. How can I be lazy when I have to walk all this long way in a couple of days?

I’m scared.

Scared of my laziness.

Scared of auto-correct.

It has a mind of its own. Should it have put an apostrophe in there, back there just then? Is it messing with me, because I said it was psycho?

I’m so tired I can;t go back and fix all these mistakes.

you are seeing me raw.

Un auto-corrected.

I am naked to you all.

Ugly, isn’t it?

Or pathetic. I’m not sure which. If I wasn’t so tired I;d know if I was ugly or pathetic. Perhaps I’m both.

I have to sleep.

This is the best shot I took all day. It is total crap. I’m ashamed to put it up here, but this shows you that I am a) not a good photographer, and have no right to be teaching people how to take photos, and b? how vain I am, because this is a shot of jennifer cutting off all the tassels of a scarf I bought for the camino, because I don’t like girly tassels on my scarves.

or is it scarfs?

I called jennifer my camino daccy. I mean caddy.

she hit me.

I’m gong to sleep.

night.