Today we would be leaving Portugal and enter Spain by boat from Caminha. We hadn’t walked for long before we could see the volcano looking mountain top on the other side of the water.
Nanci had booked tickets for the crossing the day before, and there are two companies competing for business, so make sure you have the right one. Yet again the ‘ferry’ was a little boat. After Nanci and I, two young Latvian ladies, and an Australian girl got in, it was basically full – and still a handful of cyclists came and wanted to load themselves and their bikes in! The captain seemed to mull it over, decided against it, and told them he would be back shortly. It’s not a long voyage, after all. The captain seemed to enjoy cutting the engine a few times mid stream, possibly to check his phone, but we were too busy chatting to take much notice of him. I recommend you put your jacket on for the crossing, as some got wet, others not.
When we arrived on the other side, we were surprised that there seemed to be nothing open, no facilities or cafés, even with a steady stream of wet pilgrims. Best to eat and drink in Caminha before you go. I was glad I had nipped to the nearest bar for the loo before our ferry came (and remember, if you use the facilities without purchasing anything, be a good pilgrim and leave a euro on the bar). Camigo David of ClearSkiesCamino, who walked it three weeks before us, had told me that most people go ‘up and over’ as it’s shorter, but steeper, than going the long way round. So we headed uphill, and very soon we were deep in green and shady Galician tree tunnels.
If, like us, you are booked into the Hotel Monumento Convento, and if, like us, you can’t make sense of where Google Maps tells you it is, this is the place. And it is brilliant, worthy of a parador! OK, so we had to move furniture around again to create space between our twin beds, but that was becoming routine by now. There was so much to see, so many little treasures everywhere.
Cue celebratory lunch. Turns out the man at the next table was from A Guarda, but lived in the US, and was pondering whether to walk or cycle the Norte or the Francés … so we had a long chat about options before we wished each other buen camino.
A Guarda by day and by night. It really looked a very nice little town. We had dinner in a very busy basic restaurant near the hotel, which filled up very quickly and stayed solidly full. We thoroughly enjoyed some flat, grilled chicken with pepper and mushroom sauce respectively, expecting to find the usual Spanish pilgrim menu in the coming week. We’d also have to stop saying obrigado and return to gracias, change bom dia to buenos dias, and bom caminho to bo camiño in Galego and back to buen camino – adding the silent H to the olá should be easy.
The stone benches by the little beach had soaked up all the sunshine and were pleasantly warm when we sat down to watch the sunset and ponder another lovely day.
Somewhere Slowly 