The pilgrims were up bravely and out the door at 7:50 am after more sore feet and muscles yesterday - more on that in another post! This is the day with the >< 460 M gain and a 6 Km walk to the start since we stayed in a little family run hotel just outside of Ponte de Lima. After my portion of walking yesterday, I will not even attempt any today.
I spend some time making changes to the car booking and checking if I can rent a car here to get us to Valenca on the Portuguese side of the Rio Minho. No Ma'am, you have to go to Viana do Castro which is out on the coast 20 or 30 Kms away! Knowing that the baggage transport person has not come yet, I decide to wait in the lobby and sure enough, the owner of the hotel is able to explain my situation and I'm able to get a ride into Ponte de Lima. As we ride along, stopping to pick up other luggage, Marco the taxi driver talks about the difficult walk today. I explain about David and Laura walking and I am going into town to find the bus. Bus!! No bus - no connection to Rubiaes (pronounced with a prominent rolled r in the back of your throat and sh on the end! try it - Rrrrrubuaysh!) Seeing the look of dismay, he offers to take me to the next place we are staying. I am back on the Caminho with its many Angels!
Just as we pull up to the Albergue Constantino, I have a text from Laura - Where are you? I know immediately this is probably not so good. She's had enough for the day and I surely can't blame her. I had taken Marco's business card! A quick call and he was willing to come back after he'd dropped all his luggage. In the meantime, Dave had messaged to say there were taxis where they were and then the next second - the owner of the café is bringing her now! How wonderful to experience pay it forward from the many rescues I did two years ago!
Dave has decided to walk the mountain anyway. After Laura is settled, I sit in the lounge area with the tablet trying to get my Kobo to reset. No go - I think it is toasted! Grrrr! Then I text Dave to see how he's doing and start judging when I can leave to walk out a little way to meet him. Well, I'm on a road and I think I'm standing under the A3. I'm looking at the map for today and thinking the A3 is nowhere near the Caminho! A flurry of messages determine he has gone off the track somewhere and is in fact on the N201. Now I see a sign for Rumarigaes. OK, take the road south of there to the right to go to Cabanas. By the next message, I was getting worried and tried to have the guy downstairs drive out to find him but he couldn't get his head around the Ponte Romano on the map - no Ponte - Ponte is a qui - on the other side of Rubiaes! Thankfully, another message came - I am back on the Caminho at Cabanas! Finally, I can go out to meet him as he's only about 1 Km away. This is why our first Camino friends, Greg and Gayle, were so protective of Dave and his wandering attention!
We have spent another lovely evening over food and wine! The albergue owner drove us down to the restaurant run by his brother and mother and where he and his wife serve! Everyone works together here! They bring platters of food, we learn a little more Portuguese, and the lovely wife learns our dessert is called Crème Brulee - which we do not divulge isn't even English!
Laura - bless her - is gung ho to walk again in the morning. It's only16 Kms she announces! We realize tomorrow will be our last day in Portugal for awhile and feel sad. The country is beautiful and everyone we have met has been lovely, welcoming and patient with our pitiful attempts at the language
This was the hardest day (the only one that was more trying was the last day when we walked into Santiago. It rained that whole day and I ended up getting splashed by a huge bus driving through a puddle. My mouth was open and my dad and the Irish people we were with thought it was pretty hilarious. Hahaha. No concern just pointing and laughing. Hahaha. So funny to look back. My mom would have given me a hug! Haha my dad just ate that all up! Anyways I digress!). This was the hardest day physically so you are on to less steep treks now! Good job uncle Dave! Enjoy Valenca and take so many pictures. If you can stay in the Fort! The next day after is busy on the highway so we took a bus for part of it.
ReplyDeleteSo good to hear that people are being gracious and accommodating especially when one really needs it. I think the next place we stayed with a view of the harbour. Pwrhaps you will be able to take a dip in the ocean? Love to you all. L
Loving the posts... it's amaze to hear about what you've all experience already. Love you guys!
ReplyDeleteLoving the posts... it's amaze to hear about what you've all experience already. Love you guys!
ReplyDelete