Ponte de Lima | PGS

It just hit me today.

I’ve got to start walking in less than five days! I’m not prepared. My back is sore and my knee is sore and my teeth are sore and my head is sore.

I’m sore.

And I haven’t even started yet!

All these other people who are coming on this tour – they’ve been out climbing mountains and lifting weights in gyms and walking unbelievable miles through the desert each day.

Me? I’ve toodled off on jaunts through the Mudgee vineyards now and then, stopped to gawk at kangaroos, and generally done bugger all.

The day of reckoning is fast approaching. Soon I’ll have to don a backpack – yes, a backpack – and get out there and hoof it all the way to Santiago.

I’m just getting nervous, that’s all – like I did this time last year.

Last year though I was nervous because of the enormity of the challenge ahead of me. This time I’m nervous because I feel I’ve not approached my training seriously enough. After all, it’s only 240kms, and hey, there’s no Pyrenees to climb.

Oh yeah? 240kms in less than two weeks is still a hell of a walk – if I can use that term in the context of a pilgrimage – and there are still some big mountains to get over. Not the Pyrenees, no, but they’re still gnarly.

We’ll see soon enough…

Okay – today.

The highlight of today was going to a toy museum at Ponte de Lima.

Jennifer and I had some time to spare waiting for a meeting so we checked out the museum on the other side of the old Roman bridge.

The museum was surreal. At least, I found it surreal. Toys freak me out. They come alive at night and make toy noises and play with each other in seriously sick ways and when they get bored with that they try to kill you in your sleep.

For me the highlight of the toy museum was the display of Nazi soldiers. They were marching towards Hitler and Goebbels, giving the Heil Hitler salute.

I wondered about all the little children who used to play with these toys. I wondered if they had tanks and Messerschmitts too, and death camps and gas ovens. It would have been fun to collect the whole Auschwitz set, wouldn’t it…

i couldn’t get out of that toy museum fast enough.

On the way back over the bridge I saw this bloke in a boat spearing eels from the bottom of the river. Very cool. The eels were the size of pythons.

Lunch was in a nondescript joint in Braga. I always put my PGS to work when I look around for a place to eat. it never steers me wrong. This place looked very unprepossessing from the outside, but we walked in and couldn’t find a spare table, the place was so packed.

Ordered a full serving of grilled Frango – chicken – the birds from nearby Barcelos, famous for it’s super delicious poultry.

This photo is like one of those military photos taken from a satellite which shows just a normal town, and doesn’t show the huge bunker of weapons of mass destruction hidden underneath.

I might be a little florid here with my analogy, but basically what I’m trying to say is that all the chicken is buried under the salad and chips. With a little excavation, the scrumptious grilled chicken was brought out into the open and was quickly devoured.

Full grilled chicken, chips and salad – enough for two hungry people – €9.

After lunch we drove to Bom Jesus, the spectacular religious site on a mountain overlooking Braga. Checked out the hotel where we’ll all be staying – right beside the huge church on the hill. Here is the view out of my bedroom window –

Then went traipsing down all the stairs to get the picture post card shot looking back up at the church – but this couple spoilt my shot.

On the way back up I photographed all the little fountains which represented the five senses –

SIGHT –

SOUND –

TASTE

TOUCH

SMELL

Tomorrow we meet up with our local liaison lass – Catarina. We’ll stay overnight at her parents beautiful hotel, Villa d’Arcos – and then the next day, we all meet up!

HOOLY DOOLY! and HOLY MOLY!!

Here below is Jennifer taking a photo –

I shouldn’t have so much sleep.

It’s not good for me.

Eleven hours is not healthy. It takes you forever to wake up. My body is used to five hours sleep a night – six hours top. Eleven hours and it becomes confused. It feels like it has to punish me for my indolence.

I took a wrong turn leaving Tui and ended up on the freeway heading north, when I should have been heading south.

Thing about Spanish roads, they’re fantastic. Freeways criss cross the country – infrastructure that’d be the envy of most of the rest of the world.

And they have very few exit ramps.

It took me 25kms before I could turn around and head back to where I was meant to be going. So my little moment of sleep enhanced inattention cost me 50 useless kilometres, half an hour of driving, and about AUD$10 in road tolls.

The whole episode reminded me of those occasions when I got lost on the Camino last year, and I had to retrace my steps. I hated that. I don’t mind putting in 25-30-35kms in a day, but if I have retrace even 2kms, I broil.

Why is that?

Surely getting lost, retracing your steps, is part of the pilgrim’s journey?

In life, we can’t always go forward. There are times when we have to go back, then walk the same path again.

Perhaps the second time around we’re meant to see things a little differently…

Perhaps it’s the Universe trying to teach us a lesson in patience…

Perhaps we’re being told that we should pay more attention to life around us…

Perhaps I programmed my Garmin incorrectly…

Today was about getting Portuguese SIM cards. Vodaphone at Viana do Castelo – effortless. No passport required, (I forgot to bring mine with me), a young lass who spoke good English (thank you thank you thank you) – in and out in about 10 mins.

Actually, today wasn’t about SIM cards, it was about tarts. And pastries. Portugal does the best pastries. Ponte de Lima – my favourite town on the Camino Portuguese because it’s so damn beautiful – has a gorgeous little pastry shop. I got this bundle of goodies for myself and Jennifer for morning tea. All that, with three coffees. Guess the price –

I pulled out a €10 note, expecting to have to chip in a few coins as well. In fact I was a long way out. The total cost – all those pastries and three coffees – came to €4.40.

I thought the lass serving me had made some big mistake, but no – that was the price.

It didn’t take long for the pastries to succumb to the destructive influence of my digestive juices, and so rather than sit at that table and order another plate, I thought I should best go for a walk. Ponte de Lima has a special quality. It’s in the old Roman bridge, it’s in the ancient churches, it’s in the long avenue bowered by tall trees. I walked around town seeing colour and beauty everywhere. Engorged with enough beauty to last me a good few hours, and still engorged with the wonderment of those pastries, Jennifer and I drove away – heading to the casa rurale near Rubiaes that will house us on day 6 of our walk. Casa Oliveirinha is a beautifully restored farmhouse that has a full kitchen and lounge/dining area. We had a home cooked meal – vegetable soup made from produce from the garden, and a baked codfish dish that was the yummiest cod I’ve ever had – the recipe handed down from the hosts’ grandparents. I went to bed fully sated, and put on my alarm clock for 5am.