I’m a little obsessed about where I sit and am not too sure where it comes from. I’ve thought about potty training but have no memories of that. So once seats are booked and I don’t have one up the very front, that’s okay, but if they are free flowing seats, that’s when it’s scary. So I determine where the bus will arrive, have Corrie put the luggage on, while I try to be first [...]
We sat on the steps of the local cathedral behind a Faro flautist listening to the enchanting sounds of his silver flute. I could have stayed there all day, watching people stopping, some momentarily, others longer. The power of the flute that has no argument, no need for conflict, no hidden agenda. Instead passers-by responded in their own unique ways. Three men wandered up the steps and sat quietly, their backs against the ancient city [...]
Usually we are in the centre of the old town wherever we are. As we walked, it meant that we were on the camino, having easy access to food and other services, useful because we have to be prepared for unknowns when walking many kilometres and having destinations that need to be reached that day. Now it is very different because we are freer to make more relaxed choices. To this extent we booked our [...]
Someone said to me the other day that Spanish is similar to Portuguese but Corrie tells me differently. She says it is easier for a Spanish speaker to read Portuguese, than to understand the spoken language. So not a linguist myself, I started thinking about it on another level. Today it was really profound. At breakfast in our Porto home, yes we’ve moved again, a loud argument began between the Portuguese owner and a young [...]
The Dutch girls were the first we met on track Cemented friends once we had smashed our wine, Another Dutch, she rarely saw our back We wished, with her, that we had spent more time. The Belgian couple, young and full of life Dismayed her troubled foot caused endless pain, And then there was the bargeman and his wife These Dutch had paused to chat between the rain. Another pearl, she was our final host [...]
Not a good start to our last day ... but they say the camino is about learning, about our reactions, how we could have behaved differently. In the pilgrim places where the cost is very low, the attention given to the walker is very high. At the high end of the market the cost is very high but regard to the walker, in our experience, has been very low. Last night we had little choice [...]
The penultimate day of our walk and it had a different feel about it. We have been so used to a regular routine that requires little thinking or planning, that to then have to use our thought processes seems alien. In a strange way we are leaving ‘the corners’ and are starting to think about the road stretching out ahead. So back on track - this time a very windy one, the first of our [...]
Looking down on two deep river valleys, we could just hear the waters echoing their different sounds as they made their never pausing way through this, our first major rainforest. A very long gentle slope took us to Cortinas’ hilltop followed by a large drop into the Valga Valley, where we met up with the echoing waters. Similar topography took us through more beautiful and moss gathering trees. A glimpse of our Polish friends was [...]
Started early today but being Monday, the cafe bars open late but fortunately we found an old original one on the outskirts. As Corrie was ordering breakfast happily in Spanish now, I looked out to see a huge hedge surrounding an area the size of a small plaza. It called me to it so I went and found a Parador. For those who don’t know, a Parador is usually a former palace or monastery converted [...]
Dinner with our Dutch friends was fun as we told stories, shared ‘life parts’, and amused ourselves with the local live entertainment. The first part was an older family member who seemed to have a homemade obstacle course leading through our tables to ‘her’ chair. Each time a dinner guest moved an obstacle she would put it back and push her wheelie through it. Sometimes the guest was also as persistent. The performance of the [...]
