Lisbon

Hi dear ones

Here’s the penultimate group of summaries of your amazing journey.

With love

Narayan and Janine

Day 29
“They walk toward me, their burley, bearded, steadfast looks appear at first glance to be threatening. When my “Hola” is returned by all three, I know they aren’t there to defend the longest medieval bridge in Spain. They may not even have known this fact, as ‘Bikers’ conventions, I imagine, would not have a history component and this is what we walked into as we crossed the bridge that Don Suero de Quinones successfully defended against three hundred knights (one at a time).” After being scorned by a beautiful maiden, he defended the bridge, freeing himself from the bonds of love and regaining his honour. (What, only three hundred??).
Hospital de Ortigo is very pilgrim friendly – nice guided tour.
We leave town on our own, once again the only ones on the street, a feeling we are getting to cherish.
An American passes us on the uphill part, still reflecting on why he is walking this marathon.
The mountains close in on us once more as we passed a lean-to cafe against a pile of ruins.
It is then downhill on to Murias de Rechivaldo.

Day 30
This village has two major streets – with houses made of multi coloured, multi sized stones, forming thick walls with large wooden doorways, many once used to house the horses and horse drawn vehicles of earlier times.
The village is on a vast open low scrub flat, a narrow white gravel pathway stretching kilometers ahead flanked by yellow broom, lavender and white flowered bushes.
Through the delightfully quaint village of El Ganso, we stop at a local store run by an equally delightful woman who was run by eight friendly El Gatos and a miniature El Perra called Petunia.
On entering Rabanal we join a lovely Canadian woman whose brother in law is suffering from advanced Parkinsons. We swap blogs with ‘M. M.’ saying she would promote my blog on her website and I would try and access hers.
Wandering along the steep streets we hear bells ringing and the haunting sounds of the Gregorian chant and soon find its enchanting source, inside a small church. We sit and I look around in amazement at what could have been an abandoned building. There are holes in the walls and ceiling where stones have fallen out and pieces of timber are wedged in to prevent further collapses. Vines are growing through the walls, seats placed against more troublesome decay and cracks lit up wherever you look.
“If Leonard Cohen’s line of his poem was to ring true: ‘ring the bells, there’s a crack in every thing, that’s where the light gets in’ then truly this little glorious structure would burst with light.”
“On reflection, since the cracks of Parkinsons appeared in me, I have found a lot more light in my life amongst the dark stuff (that I probably wouldn’t choose to have) which keeps me from being an abandoned structure.”

Day 31
The once far away mountains seems to close in on us, as the sun paints ever changing pictures in the fading sheets of snow.
We are joined by a Korean mum and her daughter who have different reasons for walking; daughter was doing it for mum while mum’s reason was a secret. We say our goodbyes and move up to 1500 meters, the highest point on the Camino.
‘We do a little 1500 meter jig with a very friendly German fellow whose path we crossed intermittently down the steepest, rockiest part of the Camino and I think the most dangerous.’
Soon our village home, Acebo appears, clinging to the hillside hanging on to life as its single street wounds down the steep hill.
becoming one with the continuing Camino track and yes one could say it had a placebo effect on We catch up with our Danish friends who agree that last night’s cracked church was definitely a highlight.
We climb up to our rooftop dwelling, the stairs as steep as the mountain we had just descended, but the price as low as the flat plains of the Meseta.
Bags are dropped off at the wrong location, but after a lot of police work by our faithful luggage movers the bags were found after being dropped off at two wrong locations.

Day 32
We push through isolated oases of rainforest, jumped narrow streams, and negotiated narrow cliff paths in the constant shade of mountains to our east.
The descent is difficult as we decided which rock is stable enough to take our weight.
We have coffee with an American Vietnam Veteran and talk about the meaning of life, long relationships and time out on the Camino Down into the undulating valley of Ponferrada where we meet up with those four Americans who have been following us. I challenge them today and ask why? They don’t have a satisfactory answer so we just accept their suspicious company.
We meet up again with our Dutch women friends.

Day 33
A day off today and I need to check a pain in my heel – problem is a small spur.
The day off has me reflecting on Parkinsons and walking. Walking evens the playing field for all and even if you’re in a wheel chair (with help) it can be done, with probably even more chance of a ‘duende’ (see poem) moment.
I know it’s not for everyone but for me (along with poetry) it gives me a way of expressing myself on a level playing field.
I’ll never be able to put my socks on easily, verbally express myself as clearly as others or type anywhere nearly as fast as I used to but I can walk and write and that’s fantastic and when I can’t do that, then more opportunities will arise to address those challenges when they come.

Day 34
Out into the Plaza and along a lantern lit street, and soon into a good rhythm with Sandy taking magic pictures as we go.
‘Along highways but soon into the country again through undulating manicured fields, up long hill paths, over streams and vineyards with workers now in the field and Poplars once again, standing like Knights Templars watching over the pilgrims.’
I overtake a singing pilgrim and hear that familiar American phrase “good for you” in response to my back saying “Walking for Parkinsons”.
We start talking, beginning with her Aunty of 73 who may write to me to chat about life.
My singing friend with her many physical challenges is walking the Camino because ‘she can’ and is writing a blog that I forget and hopefully she’ll remind me when she sees this. It is about architecture along the camino and is called ‘ruins……com’.
We wind down into the river hollow of Villafranca. A walk around town takes us through trimmed maze like parks, narrow lanterned streets along a wide, sometimes intimate rocky, rumbling river that could have been the Ganges at Rishikesh or the river in the Black Forest, crossed by high and then low medieval bridges.

Day 35
I wake my sleeping wife at 5.30 raring to go but she must have dreamt that our poles were missing. I remember that I had put them to bed in an outside cafe and forgot to wake them up. We find them at 7.30 am where they were taken in by an empathic cafe boss.
We still have a moon when we leave but the sun has now become the most dominant light in the sky.
The three of us travel alone, moving from walker to walker as speed and time permits. I talk with a young Korean couple who teach me how to say Buen Camino in their language.
A man from L A donates money to Parkinsons and will check my blog out.
A French couple found something we had dropped and we spent time with them.
All these conversations offered us a new experience from our more reclusive moonlight excursions.
We stop to talk to some locals who inform us that the shapely dark leafed trees covering the steep slopes are chestnuts, his two finger rubbing indicating they are very lucrative.
We reach a beautiful valley that takes us just above the previous river meandering gently through rolling meadows at the foot of the mountain.
Home to our quaint village nestled at the foot of tomorrow’s mountain climb.