Cancer: a letter to a friend of a friend.

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I was asked a question by a friend, looking to help a friend of hers with one of the treatments for cancer that was worrying her. I realized that it is now 15 years for me .. since I went through cancer treatment. I wanted to impart thoughts that I thought might help. I decided to share my letter here in case someone else might be going through a similar situation.

Cancer IS the emperor of all maladies… this is the title of a book about the history of cancer, but the title itself is quite meaningful for my purposes here.  I guess I referred to “the cancer”or “my cancer” as the dragon, a mighty foe that I took on and in the end, left along the shore of an ocean somewhere (to follow the metaphor).

It is mighty disease that, if discovered, beyond its initial core, must be fought with all the armour that you have available, and that “armour” is pretty darned substantial nowadays. I guess it is a very different disease in many ways, there are many diseases that can kill you, but this one, you have this window of opportunity for a complete cure, but the treatments are the price to be paid.

The thing about cancer treatment nowadays, for the most part, otherwise healthy people survive the treatment. The people you hear of dying from the treatment, are usually the very old, or people who are otherwise quite unwell before the treatment.  That being said, not everyone survives the treatment unscarred, at least  in some way. Most have very minor scars that are more like souvenirs, that you picked up at a battle.  You never really know what is going to affect you.  I guess everyone is most afraid of chemo therapy, as I was, but, for me, it was the radiation that was the hardest to endure, and where I got my “souvenirs”. 

The way I have always looked at it, is that cancer treatment is a matter of throwing everything but the kitchen sink at you, and then waiting, (and waiting) to see if the cancer is actually gone, and not to return.  So it is important to be sure that you have done everything you can when it was most important to do it all.  The horse is out of the barn, but to catch it before it is out of the field.

(I should point out that the other group of people who die during treatments are the ones who’s cancer was quite advanced at the time of discovery and the treatments are just to buy the person a little extra time. These people usually die of the cancer itself)

Most aggressive cancer treatments are going for a cure, as is yours.

For each form of treatment there are percentages given as to the risks of each side effect. I believe it is important to look at those risks and compare them to the risks without treatment, and they will always be better. The benefits MUST always outweigh the risks. This is true of all treatments in medicine, its just with cancer, the risks are so bad (if left untreated), that they are willing to accept some risks with the treatments. 

The biggest chance is that you will go through your treatments with little to show in the way of scars, (or souvenirs), and that 15 years from now, you will be telling someone else, like I am telling you now, about cancer treatment. Perhaps by then it will all be an M RNA vaccine that is just injected and then your bodies defences kill the cancer, like they would fight the flu.

(The way SOME cancers are being treated now)

I thought I would end this with the song I wrote the day I reached 5 years out from my cancer…..

Janet

Winter roads …. take me … somewhere…

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It is the awkward time of our winter…….. that we are confused. We are racing to avoid snowstorms and dreadful cold temperatures in an RV when we would be totally warm and dry at home. In fact many nights would have been warmer had we stayed at home. It is the unfortunate truth that to get to somewhere warm for the winter, you have to go through somewhere colder. Last night we camped near Tonopah and it was -7 degrees this AM and there was frost on the inside of the front window. There is a blind that comes down that prevents the heat from within to warm the inside of the front window.

I guess it was an achievement as (-7C) (19 Fahrenheit) . the lowest temperature we have managed without any frozen pipes etc…while camping without hookups. Our furnace keeps the underneath part of motorhome warm (the basement) where all of the pipes and water tanks are. We are getting more confident with our winter conditions camping. This is never our intention, but nice to know we can get by in a pinch…. and weather IS getting more and more unpredictable. We camped at the Wasco county fairground campground which is further just south of the Dalles, in Oregon. It was a. wonderful site, and we saw a very unusual looking fawn. Instead of being brown with white spots it was mostly white with brown spots. Sadly….. easier for hunter to spot?

When we travel in Motorhome, Tucker usually rides right between us in a dog bed, and when the roads get too curvy, OR too up or down he squeezes in in front of me until things settle down, so you can imagine my thoughts when I looked down to see he was not in his bed! My first thoughts were that …. could we have left him behind at our last stop??? 🤔🤔 NOT very likely, in that his every move is closely monitored when we are anywhere away from home….So I looked back and ……… I guess after all of the years we have been traveling with him, he has decided he wants to try out the “other seats”. I guess he wants a better view🧐😎

Then today I looked back and WHERE IS TUCKER??

We have hit snow a few times now at the higher elevations, but we were lucky that by the time we came along the roads were bare and dry. The route we took was likely more likely to have snow in that we went through eastern Oregon into Nevada through a higher pass. But it really is quite beautiful and we have been driving the coastal route for SOOO many years, the change is nice. I have shown on this map the route we took from Burns OR to Winnemucca NV.

With any luck we will be somewhere that does not freeze tonite. We have heard that it IS snowing at home.

So for all of our friends who are staying home this winter in Canada, we admire you for your strength and endurance.🍻🍻🍻

Much love from Janet, Ken and Tucker, the dog who likes to sleep all over the place

on the road…. again….

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Well I guess moss never tends to grow under our feet….. just weeds… We have done all of our final garden preps and we have hit the road searching for better weather. We never really have must of an idea where we are going, but generally south.

Oddly our first night camping we found a county fair grounds campground (they often have great inexpensive campgrounds) and my All stays app said that it is open all year, so we headed there. Only to find that although there was no formal sign that said it was closed, searching the internet made clear it WAS closed. however the power was still hooked up to the sites and the next place was a long ways away, and it was late and so we plugged in and left jeep hooked in up in case we were asked to leave.. but we were not. It seemed quite cold and in the AM it was clearly frozen (-2 celsius). The camping app had said it was at 1800 feet elevation, but it turned out to be 2600 feet and APPARENTLY (according to a friend) the highest elevation of any town in Washington. I guess every town needs to have a claim to fame and apparently Waterville, Washington is the highest elevation of any town in Washington state. It is one of those towns that is extremely well demarcated. You are out in the middle of nowhere and then you are in a town.

Further south and closer to sea level is Saddle mountain, a BLM area that is well known throughout Washington for its petrified wood. We have been here before and simply took the jeep along the very circuitous route to where everyone else had dug for the prize rock. We are MUCH too lazy to dig anymore. The book said that the entire mountain is likely home to a petrified forest and to just wander around looking for bits of petrified wood, and then dig there because it was possibly like the tip of an iceberg.

So we decided to just climb the mountain (on foot) from the backside to see if we found any tips, (of icebergs). We figured we had just finished the camino…. so what the heck. It was actually a bit of a difficult climb and we went a LONG ways up without seeing much of anything. AND THEN…. near the top, I started seeing broken bits of Petrified wood (PW), and then more and then more. So we tracked the bits up a very steep part of the mountain and found where all of the bits were coming from… essentially a petrified log, with no large chunks near by. Likely a few tons of petrified wood in an area we felt uncomfortable standing (it was so steep) let along hauling this log out…. So we just left it there, sadly….it was just so much fun to find it, I guess that was good enough. Sadly I thought I had taken a picture but getting back I realized I had not.

The way down is always harder in different ways than going up. Going up its all about lungs and heart… going down it’s all about knees and elbows, and as such I slipped and fell. (this is NOT unusual for me at all). However….I have a new IWatch, and it quite suddenly started ringing…and trying to shut it down I realized it was recording my comments. It said “it looks like you have had quite a bad fall, do you want emergency assistance?” Of course I did not, it likely seemed worse that it was because I fell right on my phone and likely these devices sympathize with each other.

Of note, it would have likely taken a helicopter to get someone with a broken leg where I was, so GOOD thing I was able to shut the thing off.

I guess that is all the stories for now

bye for now

Janet, Ken and Tucker( who has NOT just done the Camino, so needs to get into shape 🤨)

The long good bye….

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We are so thrilled to have a few more days to spend in Compestela. We spent yesterday meeting up with friends we had met along the way. For some reason ( I guess how we booked the trip), we ended up with a day we walked 35 KM when most only walked 15. The whole thing was booked so long ago, but I guess I designated 13 days hiking as a way of cutting costs. Looking back, I think I would have booked in a few days rest along the way (if I were to do it again)

A few things we have found out along the way, things that are different here from home, some just details, some important. The hotel rooms never have facecloths If you order a beer, a wine OR a coffee, you always get something with it, beit a bowl of nuts etc with drinks, or a pastry of sorts with coffee. Pretty much always, we wished we had shared one order of meal, as it was almost always too much.

We spent our second to last day enjoying a very very long lunch with Australian friends. We told funny stories about the trip for hours, until finally the waiter had had enough of us, and we all went off to meet another group of pilgrims who were just arriving. Of course we celebrated finishing the camino with them too. I guess we got to celebrate for 3 days with different people every day…. perhaps it was good to have gotten ahead of everyone.

The last time we were in Santiago de compostela I was quite sick and had a broken shoulder, but we did remember this wonderful place we went for lunch, an Italian restaurant. so THIS celebration was having pizza and Ken not having to cut my pizza for me. There really is something special about going back to a place you never thought you would ever get back to.

We have found that the whole bus system is the most well kept secret….in each place, to find the bus stop locally seems to be a secret. We are on a bus from Santiago de Compestela to Lisbon now and to make certain where the station was was quite a task. Then to get onto the bus was also a shemozzle. It was totally unclear what bus was going to Porto and which one was going to Lisbon. The luggage was all put under and at the last minute they wanted Kens Pack as well, which is where our lunch is……(and our passports). not really expecting this, another bus passenger told the bus driver that Ken needed his medication, so was able to get the lunch bag.

A few pictures from inside the cathedral, which according to some is the most impressive in Europe.

apparently there is gold up there.🤔

Well onwards to Lisbon/Lisboa, janet and Ken

ponderings from the end of the trail…

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WE HAVE ARRIVED! we have done our second Camino. This time we walked into Santiago de Compestela, and I must say it was rather a bit of a let down…at least the first part.

It was just walking through a city to begin with, until you get to the final square. It was a bit hard to find our way, as the markers were harder to find. However when you get to the square it is totally amazing, such striking structures and so many of them. Last time it was all under repair so the actual cathedral was cloaked in scaffolds and cranes. You can see now looking at the cathedral that is better cared for than most you see, I gather that they have lots of funding to keep it up.

I must say that of all of the cathedrals we have seen in so many cities of Europe, the details here are the most exquisite. THIS is the structure where “pilgrims”go to to get their certificate. We did not get certificate last time because of circumstances we were unable to complete the last few days. This time we opted not to do the passport book, as for us, completing the camino was just a personal goal.

It is quite a touching place, people are very celebratory, hugging, jumping around, lying down with packs as pillows, everyone gazing up at this structure. I guess you could say we were more…..”Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.” This journey has been a bit harder than the last one we did because this time we booked the whole trip and so did 13 days of hiking in a row. Last time we would go 3-4 days and then stop for a few days when we were in a major centre. I think that 13 days is about the limit of what we could do, in a row. We basically went back to our room and put our feet up for the rest of the day, rather than too much celebration. My left lower leg was quite swollen, and I just had a feeling I need to rest it. I kept it up for most of the evening and now today it feels great. Today we go in search of the best TSHIRT.

So each day we have had quite a spread for breakfast, here are a few of them…… but today I must remind myself I am now only eating for one…….one day 🤔🫢. Each day along the way we have had to be up and have our luggage ready, by 8, to be take by the company that is schlepping our luggage to the next place. Today we are on our own, so just hanging around, until check out time. We have another place booked for 3 days here in Compestela.

I think I can speak for both of us, …. we feel great, and since today is our 41st anniversary we plan to find a Paella for dinner tonite.

janet and Ken

water water water…..everywhere

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After days of rain, LOTS of rain, water seems to be flowing everywhere, cool CLEAR water. There is something about deep clear water that always makes me stop to ponder, how nice it would be to jump in. The trails do not seem to be damaged, but then again, many of them have been here for hundreds of years. There IS evidence of repair from erosion in places though.

Yesterday was a lovely day, slightly cloudy but no rain. I guess the ground water is catching its way along all of the tiny creeks to the bigger waterways to the ocean now.

Every hike we have done we have had rain, I feel that any country that is experiencing a drought should invite Ken and I there to do a lengthy hike…

I always find it interesting how water is diverted, collected and then directed with rock.

As rock hounds, I must say we have walked for ??200 KM so far over lots of rocks and we have seen nothing of interest to us. it seems as thought it is just granite everywhere. There ARE interesting things they seem to do with granite here, they seem to use it where we might use treated lumber. They seem to make fences and stakes for grapevines with granite… certainly will last longer.

I am guessing, more granite here, less trees? There seems to be lovely forests, but I guess logging is not as much of a thing if you have granite? Buildings made with concrete, or rocks, or bricks. There was a time change between Portugal and Northern Spain, even though we were just going north, so the sun is now rising at 8:40 and we are starting out at about 8.

So today we do that final 16 KM into Santiago de Compestela. Although we did a different Camino 6 years ago, we did not walk into Santiago, as we had become quite ill 3 days prior to our arrival, so we had to take a bus into the city. So, fingers crossed today we hope to walk into the city.

so talk soon

Janet and Ken

Tales from the coast of Spain

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The thing about journeys like this is that you value very small things in very big ways. Things like sitting with your feet up on a bed at the end of the day…. Cafe au Lait in the AM …almost everything on the breakfast ..layout. Clean clothes…..I guess perhaps that is why we are drawn to these trips, it brings life down to a more basic level. I am sure that everyone heads out on these types of journeys with different motivations. As this is historically a christian pilgrimage, we have met several people along the way who are doing it as such, but we certainly have other motivations. One girl I walked with for part of a day was from Italy, and I said to her that all these very old rock structures likely did not impress her they way they did us. She said no…

She was doing this camino as a personal challenge to walk to Santiago de compestello alone.

We are trying to do one of these “walking “holidays each year as it seems like such a great way to see another countries landscape while staying in shape. I remember years ago seeing a T-shirt that said, “the only reason I run is so that I can eat cupcakes”🍕🍪🍷 …. Oddly we have had days that we clearly could not find enough food…POOR PLANNING on our part. We usually carry a bag of some kind of trail mix but we have not replenished our supply, perhaps because we just have not had much time, starting early and getting in late. Yesterday was a holiday here, no stores open, and getting in a 5 pm is a bad time because the dinner that we had included in our travel arrangements does not start until 8 pm usually. We have usually had to forego the dinner supplied with the bed and breakfast, as we are too hungry by the time we get in to wait until 8 pm, so usually have found a place that serves something. I think in the future I would not include dinner with our deal, as we have wasted most of our ” free” dinners. I think we are more suited to finding a place along the way for a more elaborate lunch and then snack for dinner.

To be honest, and how can one lie when writing a blog, we usually get extra food with the “breakfast provided” It is often quite elaborate and we can easily make very nice snacks later on from the breakfast fare.

We have walked between 28 and 35 KM on at least 5 of the 9 days so far and so we often find we just get back to our room and put our feet up and really for the most part, just hang out in our room. I have heard others talk about going off and exploring, but I feel I see so many wonders along the way during the day, I just want to rest so I have my energy back to tackle the next days designated kilometres. Besides, I guess being “country folk” we tend to be more impressed with the “out of the city”stuff. All of these frigging churches remind me of all of the people who were poorly and starving while “the church built extravagant Cathedrals.

The pilgrimage from Portuguese lands to Santiago de Compestello  originates in the Middle Ages. Queen Isabel of Portugal also used it in the early 14th century. The route followed the ancient Roman roads of Lusitania closely, but today, on many stretches, you will have to walk along a modern road. It seems that the areas of the path that are ancient tend to be in rather remote areas.

If you look at the 2 rocks lined up to the right of Kens boots, there is a ridge below. THAT is part of the ancient trail and you can see indentations like this in many rocky areas, that it is evident that a horse drawn cart drove along.

Here again you can clearly see evidence of 2 tracks a distance apart that a carriage would be.

Here again after a rain, you can see the grooves in the rock. You can also see in the top of the pictures the typical yellow on blue camino shell. I must say this trail is extremely well marked with these.

If you were to look at a map of Portugal and up into North western Spain, you would see the rather flat coast line of Portugal and then several very long inlets on the coast of Spain with fingers that extend for ?? 50 km into Spain. It is the first 2 inlets that we have been traversing alongside in our way to Pontevedra which is where we are tonite. We have had many amazing views of these inlets, that we have had to pay dearly for …..in climbing 🤨

We have been quite curious about these objects out in the sea. When we first came across them, (near sea level) we thought that they were some kind of longboats, but as we climbed up above them we noted that they appeared to be some sort of wharf.

Then as we got even higher…we noted that they were very organized, and that there were likely hundreds of them in this inlet, so I started searching for what they could be. Now what sort of search words would you use🤔. Things, wharfs floating in the inlet…??

I FINALLY GOT a clue… Mussel farms

“Bateas, Galician mussel farms, are rafts for cultivating typical Galician bivalve molluscs. You’ll see them as soon as you look at the Vigo estuary, arranged neatly along the coast. From those big wooden platforms hang ropes where the greatest treasures of Vigo grow: oysters and mussels. The imposing “bateeiros”, mussel boats, lift the heavy ropes loaded molluscs with cranes. It’s a sight to see. ” Apparently…. compared the horrendous fish farms we have on the BC coast which create disease in the wild fish, these are apparently very safe and clean. Apparently the safest molluscs to eat.

I do have a friend on Facebook who is a true “birder” so I hope that she will let us know what this bird is, as it took me quite awhile to get a clear picture of it.🤨 It is pretty cool the different birds you see here.

yet this guy looks kind of familiar thought 🙂

We DID stay at the Castle in Baiona, and it was pretty impressive, our longest day yet, 35 KM and we were beat and pretty impressed to find out we were staying at a castle. Each day it is a total surprise to find out where we have been booked into. This is our first …ever …totally booked trip.(I guess it is a wee bit like an all exclusive that people talk about). Some of the places are 4 star hotels and others are 1 star hotels and we just love them all, a place to put your feet up at the end of the day.

This is the “castle” from the other side …..the guy at the desk told us we could hike around the wall etc… I just laughed … after 35 KM we were just fine to sit in our room and relax.

Oh and here is me with another storm on the horizon, … well actually almost overhead…dry as yet

Well today we only walked 12 KM and it did not rain, not even for one second. So we did laundry.

Enjoying a lovely evening with our feet up.

Janet and Ken …. and missing out tucker and enjoying all the dogs along the way

…..not in Portugal anymore

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But we can see it from our hotel window.

2 nights ago we were looking at what town we were to stay in next and realized there was a large river to get across. The only bridge was about 20 miles up river. The OTHER thing we realized was that at that point the river is what divided Portugal from Spain. We were a bit surprised as we had thought we would be in Portugal for more of the hike as it is called Camino Portugal. Anyways, onwards and upwards….Oh and the OTHER thing is that the storm we are experiencing is apparently the tail end if Hurricane Helene…. I guess they call it “tempest”. So we asked at the desk and they said it was not certain if the water taxis would be running in these conditions, so we asked them to book us a taxi to Guarda for 10 AM the next day. It was to be a shorter day and having lived in a town at the end of a river. (Bandon Oregon) we were familiar with the dangers of that particular part of the river and so decided to take the day off, get a taxi and do some laundry. many days of heavy rains everything we have with us is soaked and getting mildewy. We also figured we have done an additional 16 KM in the previous days when we were lost. This picture shows the river crossing later in the day ….once the winds had lessened. It turned out that the water taxis WERE running. We had absolutely NO regrets.

We were dropped at the town square in Gaurda and, did laundry, had lunch and then started looking at where out hotel might be. Well it turns out it was a the top of the hill adjacent to Guarda. 4 KM with 350 metre rise in elevation. SIGH.

Well it turned out to be QUITE a breathtaking climb up out of Guarda, Monte Santa Trega.

It was quite a hike up, so good that we had not done the whole distance that day.

What was at the top was an archeological dig that exposed a very large village that began around 400 BC. It was a settlement influenced by the romans and “Punics”. Research has shown… The Iberian Peninsula Northwestern takes part of the punic commercial route which from Cadiz sails by the Atlantic coast looking for tin, slaves or leather. The presence of abundant and varied pottery confirms that the main role of the trade in Santa Trega. The Citania (~city) will lose its relevance when the construction of roads reduces the importance of maritime trade.

Each of these would be a home, these were all excavated during an archaeological project.

Much later,(and higher up the mountain is the “Santa Trega Hermitage” recorded as early as the 12th century, and renewed and enlarged in the 16th and17th centuries. It is a religious site where devotees go through the stations of the Via Cruces (way of the cross.

I guess the very best part of all of this is that we were staying at the very top, in a room that looked out over Portugal and the city of Guarda in another direction. I must say the room itself was OK at best, but the view was amazing. Not sure I have ever stayed at a place with such a view.

Well all this walking is definitely cutting into my blog writing time, I am very slow walker, take LOTS of pictures and check route often. So a few pictures along the way…

Well I guess we had better get going if we do not want to arrive and next lodging at 7 PM like last night. Oddly there is a time change between Portugal and Spain and we are now an hour further from home

Bye for now love janet and Ken…..

The road less traveled is not the shortest.

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We have done 3 days of the walk now and clearly the mileages given are only very rough estimates. So far we have done 33, 21, and 29 miles yesterday. We are fortunate we bought the WISE Pilgrim app for our phones which has all of the ways clearly market and some take you out of the way by quite a bit. Yesterday we chose the coastal coastal part of the trail. All of the others seem to be given an app that has just the one main hike (by the company they booked with). We ARE meeting with more and more “pilgrims” as each day goes on.

Now THIS LITTLE item is for sale. It seemed like a mini castle amongst other “non castles”

We are finding that the food is the best we have ever had, at almost every restaurant. The meals you get in some very small town along the coast in a restaurant would clearly surpass what you might get in perhaps the finest restaurant Vancouver has to offer. However we ARE struggling with the portions. They ARE reported a little different in each place, but we are beginning to sort it out.

Every meal starts with a plate of breads as well as a small bowl of olives. The olives are always a bit different some in garlic, some in other herbs, some even a smoky kind of preparing. The breads are always a bit different as well. Even at the tiniest place along the trail, in the middle of nowhere they bring this ahead of a soup lunch. The olives are often in a bowl, with another bowl under it. I did not at first understand the purpose until I was “schooled” by the patron , she came out and brought out the underneath bowl and pointed at the pits I had put on my plate.

The portions are massive, but they offer 1/2 portions which seems to be even too much for us. A half portion divided by both of us is STILL usually too much. I would love to have take pictures of the dishes being taken to other tables as they are always a work of art, again, like the highest end place in a big city might have.

This was yesterdays, clearly not the best looking dish that came out of kitchen, but 2 very large pieces of Cod with prawns on top and these potato things… a cross between the “crisps’ what the British call chips, and French fries. But they are thicker and seemed to be baked.

We DID go through a deeper forest area yesterday. While I am an extremely slow walker, people pass me all the time, well this area was much more technical, with large rocks and steeper areas to get over, I guess my mushroom picking legs took over and I passed everyone …. then crossed this concrete bridge,… wondered if the river ever flows over it.

We are currently in Viana do Castelo, and spent the night before in Esposende. For the most part we are pretty thrilled with the accommodation. Large rooms with small beds, Large beds with small rooms etc.

We did have dinner included in our travel plan and wish we had not. The dinners are usually quite late, 7:30 pm, and as we tend to be early eaters, we are especially early eaters after a whole day of walking. So usually we have eaten all of the snacks in our packs by the time dinner comes. They meals provided at these sorts of place are OK< but do not measure up to the restaurants we hit at lunch time.

Although we are putting in a lot of miles/km each day, we are doing OK. By the time we get to our lodging, we are tuckered out, but rest over night and ready to go the next day. Ken works on his feet each night, attempting to prevent blisters in the sore spots. My feet are pretty good so far. I guess my biggest issue that really affects the trip is the colitis I have. It’s a matter all day of finding the next bathroom. There are some public “WC” along the way, but nowhere near what I need. SO this is likely the reason we end up having such extravagant lunches. We likely would not see this cuisine were we not needing a bathroom at the particular time. So I guess it is all OK from that perspective.

The hardest part of the hike so far is crossing the bridge into Viana do Castelo. It is apparently 650 meters long and was built in 1878, designed by Gustave Eiffel. It is not really much to look at, and hard to believe it is that old. But it IS a very busy bridge with almost continual traffic…..and a narrow path.. and no border to the traffic

This picture does not fully depict how scary it was, especially when the busses came over and we noticed the bus driver was talking on his phone EEEK.😱. I white knuckled it over all 650 meters. Of course it was named after Eiffel, after all, it was the same Eiffel as the more well known eiffel tower.

Well we are off to walk day 4, which is supposed to be 16 KM, we shall see how we can screw that one up.

Thanks for reading, Janet and Ken. This guy came to the fence to say hi.

day 2 porto and day one hiking camino

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WELL…. to begin with, Porto must be the most beautiful city in the world. Now that could have been the sunny day, or it could have been the lovely wine at lunch speaking but what a place.

We spent our last day in Porto hiking down to the historic area and over the bridge to Gai….sp. Which is the city across the river from Porto, the place where all of the Port “lodges” are. We were going to tour one of the “lodges” but decided rather to take in the amazing Duoro river sides.

This is the bridge that crosses over and as you can see it has 2 levels you can cross on, the higher one (that the metro crosses, and walkers) and a lower one that cars cross as well as walkers.

As you can see Porto has been built on a rather steep setting, it is just about a KM to the open ocean, so a tidal part of the river Duoro. We had a wonderful lunch across from Porto (so we could get the great pictures) and the man serving us was amazing, he could apparently speak whatever language the customers did and he could also apparently read their minds. He quickly moved us to an area where smoking was not allowed, I said how did you know we did not smoke, he said he could tell. OH and apparently this macdonalds is the most beautiful one in the world.

We have discovered that moreso than Port, Portuguese wines are amazing,…. and cheap. Both whites and reds.

So we went to a wine bar our last night in Porto and met a large group of Americans who had moved over to Porto in the past 3 years. 2 of them were US military and had just decided they could no longer live in the US, because they could not stand the politics, with regards to US foreign policy. They LOVE it here and would never go back. The wife of one the men, had cancer and in the US they had not been able to receive a diagnosis, yet coming here she receives the best possible care, and treatments.

We found the 3 different depictions of women interesting.

Well yesterday we started the camino with the thoughts that we had 25 KM to walk. Since we had walked so much the day before and actually hiked the first several KM of the trail on our way back to hotel, we decided to take an UBER to near the spot we walked to, FOZ. Good thing we did, since (despite cheating in the morning with the UBER) we ended up walking 33 KM on our first day. LOTS of Voltarin cream last night.

Our first camino shell sign of our trip. ( you follow these to know “the way”

Since we are traveling the Portugal coastal camino, it was no surprise that we walked along beaches most of the day. There were heavy rainfall warnings and even some severe rainfall warnings(whenever you go to get directions on Apple Maps they give you the weather warnings. Most of the “trail” is a board walk that stretches for miles, it appears to protect the landscape from erosion and provide a great platform to walk on.

The boards are not slippery as they have many small grooves in them, that I guess allows the water to pour out. While we were not on the boardwalk we were on tiny streets through towns.

There were an assortment of things like this scattered all the way along, I am sure on a dryer day it would have been a great place for picnic. They also have exercise stations with very odd “equipment”, so you can get in shape while you hike the camino 🤨. The boardwalk is not just used by hikers, also people in towns around walking, LOTS of runners, we even had a guy bouncing a basketball following us for ages…

We are currently staying at Hotel Costa Verde, in the town of Pavia de Varzim. The company that did the booking for us listed the Hotel as Costa Verde, rather the Hotel Costa Verde, so we hiked to Costa Verde, which was a LONG ways OFF the path, only to find that there was NO hotel there. From there we had to walk BACK to Hotel Costa Verde, which is basically how we ended up walking so far yesterday. We have also determined that the distances between places on the map are just “rough estimates”, and since we are staying to the north of Pavia de Varzim, that is another reason for the long distance yesterday . The good part of these “estimates” is that today is MUCH shorter, only 20m KM, so I guess the price we paid yesterday we reap today.

What would a blog be without a dog story. THIS is from a restaurant we stopped at yesterday, this little guy was on a LONG leash and doing exactly what Tucker does when he wants something. I guess dogs are pretty international beings. What tucker does when I do not seem to GET what he wants is to push down with his head on my lap (just to make sure I am paying attention.). We miss the guy, but have good reports that he is doing well at Dylan and Sarah’s, and instead of usually following me around like a puppy dog, he is following Sarah.

Thanks for reading, much love, Janet and Ken in Portugal