Tales from the coast of Spain

October 13, 2024 ~ mymostrecentobsession ~ 3 Comments

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

October 11, 2024 ~ mymostrecentobsession ~ Leave a comment

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…..

Day 2.5 Hadrian’s Wall Carlisle to Walton

September 10, 2023September 11, 2023 ~ mymostrecentobsession ~ 2 Comments

Ah England, though hast not failed thee for the heavens have opened and we are cooled. And Kenneth, my betrothed. Doth be vindicated for all the rain gear he doth brought. Me not so much.

Josh has joined us.

One of the exciting stops along the way on our second day was a small eight year old girl was doing the Hadrian’s Wall kicking a soccer ball as a fundraiser. They were celebrations along the way and kids had joined her for parts of the adventure. It was all great fun, and she certainly looked like an avid soccer player.

The bar we stopped at for this titbit of information was the Stagshead, which had thankfully opened an hour early for the event

I was talking about the differences and similarities between Hadrian’s Wall and the Camino. One major difference is that the Hadrian’s Wall as a Path has only been an entity since 2003. It is a path that follows along the Hadrian’s Wall much of which is impossible to actually see. The Camino is a Path that has been walked on for hundreds of years. I guess a Path stays where it is as long as you’re still going between the places however, a wall stops being useful once you stop wanting to keep somebody out. For some crazy reason I just remembered that I actually have a song recorded about just this issue.

So one main difference is that there’s very little build up along the path. We go by a small hamlet every 2 miles or so but each of these is really only 20 or 30 lovely brick houses and no businesses to speak of.

It is for this reason that the trip was very difficult to book. The wall itself is not on most, maps, and on the apps that show the wall they often don’t show the towns around it. most people , it seems, tend to book accommodation through a company. The company charges about 900 pounds a person and takes care of your lodging and moves your luggage from place to place. For whatever reason, I decided that seemed like a lot for three of us so I decided to do the booking myself.

It was essentially sitting for a full day with multiple Maps calculating how far we would go in a day and then trying to find a place for us to stay at around that spot.

And then many of the smaller places get booked up early, and some close early i.e. the beginning of September. They don’t encourage you to walk the Hadrian’s Wall past the end of October because it’s too wet and hard on the trail.

Our other big issue is that we purchased Sim cards from England that we set up once we arrived in England. We were told that we could keep our same phone numbers, but that was not the case. This didn’t seem to be too much of a big issue until we realize that anytime you access the bank and they need to verify things they send you a text your phone number, so anything to do with our bank that we want to purchase, Unfortunately we cannot put through

The other issue is that an Airbnb that we stayed at wanted to verify if we were coming for supper because they are quite isolated. I did not get the email and they did try to phone me but of course the phone number was not working.

So we did 12 miles yesterday and towards the end of the day it started pouring apparently it rained 27 mm yesterday so we were quite soaked when we arrived at the Airbnb and the people were a little ticked off at me because I hadn’t gotten back to them. A little much after 12 miles and being soaking wet but obviously that was my issue and it was resolved. We had a lovely evening at Flossie’s on the wall.

Another major difference between the Camino and the Hadrian’s Wall path is that for the Hadrian’s Wall people tend to go either east west or west to east and so we often have people come in the other direction we are going west to east

We are starting to see bits of the wall today. There are Rock walls everywhere in England and so we have had a tendency to say I wonder if that’s the wall? …or could that be the wall?” But given that it is on average 10 to 12 feet high and. 15 feet wide it is more of a concept than an actual structure for the most part it seems. At least for us now.

As far as how the wall has disappeared over the years, I’m sure a lot of it is erosion and the buildup of soil, but a lot of the structures in this area are built from the rocks from the wall because they have all been taken for miles around to build a wall so churches and walls that are currently here came from “ the wall”. Recycling at its finest.

It’s like we’re walking along a high mound and trying to imagine that below us there is 10 feet of wall that is 15 feet wide

Well, for today, we are going from Walton to Haltwhistle. Starting uphill now, so will close for now. I apologize for any grammar mistakes as I have dictated this while walking along much love to all.

I do not often get really sick, but when I do

May 29, 2016September 15, 2016 ~ mymostrecentobsession ~ Leave a comment

I do not often get really sick, but when I do, it is always on some international journey that I have spent months preparing for. Ken and I are now waiting for a bus in Cea, to Santiago de compostella. I have been sick with a cold for 4 days, and the days spent walking are clearly making it worse. I coughed all night last night, and now Ken has the early signs of it. He also has a tendonitis of lower leg. I have decided that this ” way” has always been about the journey……..far more than the destination. So we are taking bus to Santiago to try to get better. Seems hiking 25 km/day with 20 lb pack is not conducive to getting better. We have loved the journey, but walking while sick is not lovable.

This is not the first time…… In 1999, I had trained for Maui marathon, caught a stomach bug on the flight and was too ill to do marathon. 2 days later I ran from Kihei to Lahaina just to console myself, but all of the marathoners were wearing the “Tshirt”……everywhere…sigh.
Then in France 2 years ago, on cycle/barge tour. It was a small barge we stayed on, and of the 20 people on the barge, ONE person had a cold, at the beginning. By the end, everyone had a cold, except Ken and I……. Well so we thought, but the next day we both were sick.

Well here we are in Santiago de Compostella, and we found an airb&b that is a very short distance walk to the cathedral. I know there is no way I could have walked today and clearly should not have yesterday. Not sure if I can remember ever coughing so much……..so we found a farmacia, (all pharmacies have a green cross on the building)(which is funny because in Washington and I believe Oregon, the green cross stands for a marijuana sales outlet)
We wanted some voltarin cream for the sore tendons, and I asked if they had ventolin inhalers……(which is prescription drug in Canada and the USA )… And she just went and got it.
So at least I have something for the cough. Ken is wondering if we could have gotten a steroid inhaler, which on retrospect might have provided more relief.
Strenuous exercise when you have a viral infection, has been shown to make it worse, mild exercise is believed to make it better. Hard to know where the grey zones cross.

Well I have to say we both feel disappointed to be here in Santiago, having walked 430 km towards here, and not having completed the Camino……I guess we are sad today and sick. Tomorrow is another day. This is a photo of the cathedral of Santiago. It is under reconstruction too.