We awoke to a misty window with small piles of ice made up of tiny rice-sized balls, which we were later to feel as light hail. Breakfast with a busload of German tourists and 4 pilgrims, 2 Dutch women and a young Belgian couple (she had the blister), started our day. Fully rain geared up except for my New Balance shoes that never seem to get wet anyway, we headed out on our familiar cobbled streets, that seem to be never ending.
Through gorgeous woodlands, initially on the original Roman road, dark clouds followed us on both sides, as they became the main actor on today’s stage. We got used to the pattern, a heavy 10 minute downpour or hailstorm mixed with thunderous applause followed by 5 minutes of lighter rain and 2 minutes of sunshine. Different scenes had the above roles changing their order but the actors were still the same.
The sick and the lame members of the audience have either been overcome by the performance of the last two days and moved on in different ways, or altered their program to wait for different warmer scenes. Maybe it wasn’t the performance at all; they simply found remedies for their injuries. One of these was the young Belgian blister woman who excitedly told me that she rubbed it with a special potion. Now they overtake us.
Once again we re-met our Dutch women friends, walking a while with them in between heavy downpours – and had a rare photo opp. with them and the 2 friendliest dogs on the camino. The large hedges and trees otherwise gave us some drying out time when they were available. Also re-met the Polish family while having a hail free coffee break and soon after had a chat to an older Canadian walking the other way.
We walked past raging rivers and exploding waterfalls, over Roman bridges where the river spray washed its tunnel-shaped walls, stepping gingerly around blister-making puddles and slippery cobbles to eventually arrive close to the Spanish border on the Minho river. This last section had been a more intimate walk as we turned the last corner to our new home.
As we walked up the street we saw signs proclaiming today, April 25 as a national holiday. In our country it is a holiday in honour of those killed in war. In Portugal it is in honour of those who resisted a more personal war. On this day in 1974, Estado Novo, their dictator of 48 years, was overthrown during a bloodless revolution. It came to be known as the Carnation Revolution when Celeste Caeiro offered the soldiers carnations as they succeeded with hardly a shot fired. The soldiers then simply placed the flowers in the muzzles of their guns.
