Stapleton Travel Blog

Last night’s dinner was a ham and cheese sandwich with Ruffles on the terrace of where we were staying.

We have a 24K walk today as we start to wind down our Camino. After 18 days of walking we are pretty tired.

At one point, in order to follow the Camino we had to walk through a massive flea market. It went on for blocks and people were driving in and parking everywhere.

We stopped to get lunch in Padron and met an Irish dad and his daughter doing their third Camino for his 70th birthday.

We are staying at O Lagar de Jesus tonight in the bunk rooms. Nice rustic farmhouse. We met sisters Martine (California) and Linda (Perth Australia) who lived in Malaysia/Singapore when they were young. It was fun talking with them about Malaysia where I was a Peace Corp volunteer.

Tonight we’ll have a communal dinner and then it’s onto Santiago de Compostela.

“The Camino teaches you the journey is more important than the destination”…

Last night we strolled down to the historic district filled with tourists and local families walking about as well as the international athletes.

As 21:00 approached the crowds really picked up. We stumbled onto a drum corp playing for a newly married couple.

Today’s walk will be close to 23K. We seem to be able to do these walks under 23K without much problems since we entered Spain which doesn’t have the cobblestones. We left at 6:45 and walked in the dark for an hour.

Chatting it up along the way with some guys from Perth (Australia) and a couple ladies from Brazil and a couple cafe stops helped the walk go by quicker. Seeing way too many peregrinos now that the coastal and central route have come together. You can usually see people ahead of you and behind you almost all day.

When we got to Caldas de Reis we stopped for lunch by a river cafe.

Afterwards we went food shopping at a “supermercado” to have something for dinner. We are staying at a home that rents out its 4 rooms upstairs with a shared bath/kitchen/terrace which is outside of the town.

“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted”….Bill Bryson

Yesterday we had a beer at O Mesón restaurant in the afternoon followed by a forgettable meal in the evening.

This morning we climbed ourselves away from the river to our first cafe con leche of the day.

Afterwards, we made our way along a small creek until we came across “Porky Pig”. How cool is that. Porky did seem a little snooty though.

I’m not a fan of graffiti but the the graffiti art under this bridge was impressive.

We only walked 12K today because we wanted to spend some time in Pontevedra. It’s a fairly big city. We decided to have a big lunch at Casa Fidel since dinners here don’t begin until 20:00. We shared a plate of shrimp followed by the house special “pulpo” (octopus) which is big in the Galicia region. The local custom in this region is to drink wine out of bowls instead of wine glasses.

Pontevedra is currently in the middle of a 4 day international triathlon with multiple events. The albergue we are staying in have peregrinos, tourists and athletes from all over the world. We seen many athletes pedaling their time trial bikes around the city.

“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home”….James Michener

As we were waiting in the albergue to go out to dinner last night we met Marshall (Denmark) again who is our bunk mate again. We got caught up on what’s going on the camino before we headed out for a burger (Tripadvisor #1 restaurant in town. Weird, right). Turns out the guy there performs magic tricks all night. Incredible.

We got an early start this morning again at 7:45 which is when the sun comes up now in Spain. We came upon an old Spanish guy while leaving town and it was the same old guy we met who helped us when we came into town yesterday. We walked with Antonio for about 3K as we tried to use our Spanish again. We haven’t spoke Spanish since our first Camino in 2016. Antonio was out for his daily 20K around O Porriño.

We later met Jeff and his son Doug (Buffalo/NC) and walked with them for a few K which makes the time go by fast. Our walk today was in and out of the rain. Luckily for both heavy downpours, we were in cafes.

We also keep meeting a nice mom and son from Perth, Australia. The mom’s name is actually Peregrina.

At one cafe we were finishing lunch and then the downpour came so I ordered a delicious chocolate croissant and a couple cups of cafe con Leche.

For those of you who are playing along at home…..yes, today was “Have fun with your hat day”.

We did 25 K today and it was a lot easier not having to walk on all that Portugal cobblestones. We arrived at Pontesampaio around 15:00 crossing the old Roman bridge.

“There are no foreign lands, it is the traveler who is foreign”….Robert Louis Stevenson

Last night was a quiet dinner with a Portuguese cyclist, Lara (Germany) and the albergue owner Diogo. Laura has knee pain and has had to end her Camino now. It happens.

We have another big day today, 27K but it is flat. Today we will cross the bridge in Valença, Portugal to Tui, Spain. Also when we enter Spain, their time is 1 hour ahead.

After crossing the bridge, the rains came. We thought we would get a cafe stop in Tui but the Camino trail skirted the central part of the town where unknowingly to us were the only cafes. At that point it became another forced march in the rain to get to our first cafe stop 17K later.

We met a friendly guy name Henrik (Denmark) on the walk who was just doing a five day walk with a tour company since he had time off. He likes the fact that you meet people from all over the world just walking the Camino.

After our cafe stop we were in better spirits. Fair to say that we broke one of our Camino rules which is only one person can be cranky at a time. It happens.

It was a long day. We left at 07:00 and arrived around 16:00. The albergue we are at (Casucho da peregrina) is newer and has everything we need, including a washer, dryer and a hair dryer!

“Once the travel bug bites, there is no known antidote. I know I will be happily infected for the rest of my life”….Michael Palin

Today we continued to climb. We will do 18K today but we will have our biggest elevation gain of 537 meters and loss of 632 meters.

It was a technical climb on rocks which was a nice change for us. The downhill was not bad.

Once we got out of the forest we got to enjoy our second breakfast of the day.

The rest of the day was a nice mix of road surfaces and interesting things to see on the way.

Here’s Beth again being the toll collector on a old Roman bridge.

We finished our short walk today and called it a day at Quinta de Estrada Romana. Cool looking place with a bit of a hippie vibe.

There will be another communal dinner here tonight. It’ll probably be vegetarian. Mmmmm yummy. Peace out.

“One’s destination is never a place but a new way of seeing things”….Henry Miller

Last night we met all the peregrinos staying at Casa da Fernanda. There was Catherine & Blaine (Kansas), Clo and Jules (UK), Thomas and Sasha (Germany), Maria, Diette and Bodai (Denmark), Yasmine (Australia), Francis & Sarah (Michigan) and Ginger (Vancouver). After meet and greet appetizers by Fernanda, we headed inside for dinner followed by a Camino sing a long.

We got a late start (08:00) for todays 23K walk since we stayed for breakfast before leaving. The morning walk was spectacular. It was a mix of farm trails, gravel roads, etc. Everything we saw was worth stopping to take a picture.

After our morning cafe stops there was still cool things to see.

For lunch we arrived in Ponte de Lima. Ginger stopped by as well and bought herself a birthday cake. Ponte de Lima is a cool little city.

After lunch it was more interesting landscape and then the final ascent into Valada where we are staying in bunk room with Marshall from Netherlands who is walking from southern Portugal.

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure some of them are in dirt”….John Muir

Last night we shared a nice tapas meal at Bistro Vigor.

Today’s walk was suppose to be an easy 20K but it rained on us all day. It was more like a forced march.

At one point we actually came across a new road being put down and they are using cobblestones! WTF. Enough with the cobbles!

We left later today around 7:30 and made it to Casa Fernanda albergue at 1:30. We are staying in a bunk house with 10 beds.

At the end of every walk it’s a real grind and somehow the next day we recover enough to walk on.

Another borderline interesting thing peregrinos do is at cafe stops is to sit outside and take our boots and socks off usually once or twice a day. Then before leaving we smother our toes with Vaseline again. You got to show your feet some love.

“The man who goes alone can start today, but he who travels with another must wait until the other is ready”….Henry David Thoreau

Today’s walk was a long, hard 29K. The scenery was nice. We were amongst a lot of agriculture ….vineyards, corn, etc.

We got out by 07:00 again and walked in off and on rain most of the morning. Maurice (Brazil) was with us off and on at the beginning. There was an old stone bridge that we crossed together. Awesome photo stop.

Seeing a bit more pereginos now. There were a couple of girls from Poland that we kept leap frogging along the walk.

We finally hobbled into Barcelos to a private room we are staying in around 4:00 pm. The cobbles are brutal on our feet. This was the farthest we ever walked and we have no intention to ever do this again.

“Take only memories, leave only footprints”…..Chief Seattle

Todays’s walk was an uninspiring 27K walk on either sidewalk or cobbles. We left Porto just before 07:00 and saw some new peregrinos along the way but not many. We did meet an older Portuguese man going through one town that walked with us a little bit and was very kind.

Around midday we stopped under a shaded area where another peregrino was resting. Luiz is from Porto and this is his first walking Camino. Previously he biked it and he was intrigued to see how walking it would be.

Sometime around 3:00 pm we got to Vilarinho (the town that fun forgot). Our albergue which is a small mix of private rooms and a bunk room. Beth and I are staying in a private room today which should help getting out in the morning without worrying about disturbing others.

The morning routine consists of taping our feet to prevent blisters and smothering our toes in Vaseline. We sleep in the clothes we are going to walk in. Then load the backpack which is a compression bag of our clothes and a clear plastic bag of toiletries or medical stuff.

We stopped at a mini Mercado on the way in to be able to make sandwiches as we weren’t sure of the food situation in this one horse town. We will be having ham, salami and cheese on a PORTUGUESE ROLL in Portugal!

“When you follow the crowd you lose yourself. When you follow your soul, you lose the crowd….”