Saturday, May 14, Day 3 on the Camino: Getting our legs and eyes back: Esposende to Viana do Castelo

Saturday, May 14, Day 3 on the Camino: Getting our legs and eyes back

Deb here: The title refers, of course, to getting into the swing of things. Day 3 went well. After an initial bad start where Camino Ways again provided vague instructions on starting our journey, I referred to an app that only uses GPS (no data or wifi needed) to get us about 2 miles from our hotel. Thank you to my friend, Jody, for telling me about it last year. It's called Here and it works well, especially at the beginning and end of each day. Mary B and Gerry H, if you haven't used it, I highly recommend it. We had it last year on our Camino I, but didn't need it since the Camino Francais was so well marked, but have used it here in Portugal. Today's Camino was much better marked than yesterday, and I'm sure tomorrow will be even better. Nonetheless, "Here" was helpful to have - especially as a backup. Besides mishaps at the start and end, we only got lost two times today along The Camino - both times really our fault - and we retraced our steps after we didn't see signs for a few hundred yards. I'm thinking the Camino will continue to be well marked as opposed to yesterday when we had to refer to Camino Ways' instructions (often not so accurate: "that cross is on the left, not the right!"). Today, we put away the instructions for the entire journey and followed the Camino signs as we did for our 33 days on Camino Francais last year.

Today's Numbers: Garmin GPS showed a bit over 15 miles and I'm thinking about .25 more when I forgot to restart it on a couple of short legs. Let's say 15.25 to 15.50 in about 5 hours. And, Fitbit, of course, showed more mileage and steps as follows - and, yes: hills!!!

Ok, now to the real writer, Dave. (Hope you get some laughs and a sense of the day....a good day)

As we have come to expect, the good weather that was supposed to begin today will actually begin tomorrow. Not bad, though, cool and gray with no rain until a mist began about 1 pm, or, in terms of what we were doing, about the time we passed the two French Caminars for the second (of three) times. We’ve pretty much given up on the "how-to-get-there" narrative provided by Camino Ways, relying, instead, on the (almost) ubiquitous yellow arrows painted on lamp posts, walls, trees and even rocks, on Scout’s GPS, on passers by, or, and lastly, on the Camino Ways written narrative which includes phrases like "…the road bends, so go round and then left ahead to the church…" This, as provided by the GPS, meant "… Turn right here, go 700 meters, turn left and go 1.2 km to the Church of Our Ladies of Perpetual Conception…" Since there is a church every 100 meters in Portugal, it’s good to be specific

Well, a pretty good day. The aches of age and infirmity faded after a couple of hours and we had less than an hour of muddy terrain to slog through. In the long run, the cobblestone streets were probably more tiring for the feet. Again a mix of village alleys, farmland, and woodland. The "farms" were mostly what we used to call "truck patches" and not the endless agribusiness type operations we saw in Spain. We could imagine local families harvesting just enough for dinner or maybe for dinner and some extra for a neighbor, an abuela, or another relative so food didn’t go to waste.

The locals certainly look European: lots of caps, the old people in black, the young ones smoking in the street and muttering "Soccer’s a real man’s game!" No one’s in a rush to go anywhere. They’re nice enough, even with the gawking and, of course, we do look strange in our non-black clothing. And wearing baseball caps, not so common here. And walking faster than a snail’s pace, obviously American. Always in a rush, you Americans. Hey, it’s starting to rain and I’m tired! Chillax!

Again, we are not traversing Camino Francais territory, where every village has a café/bar for a ten a.m. coffee and croissant. Here, when we finally found an open cafesh, there were no real croissants, only a bread/cake hybrid shaped like one. Knowing this, we bought 4 (price 1€) to have with our coffee. Eh, as we Europeans say: what can one do?

This cafesh was where, to our dismay, four Caminars passed by while we lounged over bad coffee and ersatz pastries. Damn! For those of you unfamiliar with the rules, here’s how it goes: Passing another Caminar is good for one point towards getting into heaven (not an actual possibility for one of us; Scout still has a shot). Being passed means an increased likelihood of going to H E Double Toothpicks. Not good. In the fine print, one learns that, if one is unaware of being passed (in the toilet, say), it doesn’t count. This is why the wise Caminar takes his bad coffee and fake croissant with his/her back to the Camino; the unseen passer doesn’t count. We, however (well, without naming names, one of us) saw four pass by, thus ensuring a quick trip to eternal damnation.

The gauntlet thrown, we leapt to our feet and passed the aforementioned four in short order, kicking the walker out from under one of them to be sure they’d stay behind us. The second two, a pleasant British couple, said they knew someone in San Diego…or was it Seattle? Screw’em! We hustled on by, yelling that cricket was a game for homos.** Thus we were back to zero: four had passed us and we had passed them in turn. A few miles ahead, we passed two women, who’d stopped to look at a church. Suckers! They looked like typical Hillary-voting lesbians** and belonged back with the Brits and the other twosome (Krauts? Bohunks? Mackerel Snappers? Who can tell?: they all look alike.**)

** Scout wanted to edit this since it's sooooo not PC, but, decided to leave it in - everyone knowing Dace wrote it...not her. Seriously, neither one of us is prejudiced against anyone, sexist, racist....... Well, believe what you want .

Our final triumph was passing two French guys, then taking a wrong turn so we had to backtrack and pass them again, then – Damn! – taking another wrong turn so we had to pass them a third time. To be sure this was a done deal, I threw the older guy’s beret into the river. Tres bien!

We strolled into Viana, having passed Caminars a total of fourteen times and having been passed ten times for a net of plus four. Beyond that, Viana is where the day got good. For one, having tired of the prepaid, prearranged and uninspiring hotel dinners, we decided to go out for lunch and have dinner in our room, dinner being code for wine, apples, bread, and chocolate. As happened in Husband’s Butt, the grocery store didn’t have a corkscrew so the clerk went next door to another business to borrow their corkscrew for our wine. Happens all the time at Von's, right? In Viana, the store was a "supermercado" so, maybe 20’ x 20’ and the lone clerk abandoned the store for us. Did I mention that the "tinto" (red) we bought cost 1.49€?

With dinner in our backpack, we slogged the last bit to our hotel, a mom and pop operation where we had to go into the attached restaurants and talk to the grandma before the third generation granddaughter (i.e.- . The one who spoke English) was summoned to deal with us. This is the high point of our day thus far: a mom and pop hotel – actually third generation – which has no elevator and certainly was once a private residence. There may be as many as ten rooms situated around a winding staircase. The room itself is tiny and, for no known reason, has depictions of Roman soldiers on the walls. The bathroom is so small you can simultaneously use the commode and wash your face in the sink. It’s great! Elena, the third generation, advised us that dinner included four soup/salad options plus four meat or fish main course options. "We aren’t a five star hotel, but we try to provide a five star experience," she said, almost blushing at her own slogan. For the last two nights we’ve had only the option of chicken or fish, soup or salad, so this place does seem five star despite the size. One of the highlights of last year’s trek was the many, many charming – if basic – hotels Scout found for us, so this is a flashback. (Those of you familiar with last year’s blog may recall reading that a lot of those places were described then as awful. This is the difference a year makes.)

We’re settled now in our beds (two twins pushed together for access) sorting the day’s photos and blogging, the stuff we were going to have for dinner already consumed, and gazing idly at the Romans on our walls - not a foot from the edge of our bed. Our legs, feet, and sleep pattern seem to be adapting. Life is good.

Mileage for the day: 15.5. Caminars passed (net) 4. Wine consumed (thus far) 1 bottle (tinto). Pagan activity? The evening is young.

A few photos, for those of you who have either read the above, don't know how to read, or skipped it.

We saw some beautiful tile today.

Self-serving photo showing 4 Caminars we passed (look closely: you can see them)

Some of today's signs

And, some of the terrain and sights of the day. No photos of treacherous (according to the DJRs) slippery/rocky downhill or muddy sections where we were in nervous city.

Looking back after crossing stream

Lots of cobblestone paths

And, the only Scout photo of the day since Dave was intent on passing other Caminars or not being passed. :-)....taking on our break.

Our hotel wall centurions (with Dave's foot in the foreground)

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