Day 1 - April 28, 2017 - Matasinhos to Vila do Condo

As we began our el Camino, my wife, Nicola and I skip the nine kilometre walk through Porto to the coastal trail. Instead, we take the train to Matasinhos and from here, we need to walk a mere 25 kilometres to Vila do Condo to the hotel where Nicola has booked a room for us for the night. 

We get help from attendant to purchase tickets on the light rail transit that runs through the suburbs and stops every couple of blocks. This is nothing like the gorgeous downtown area with medieval stone buildings and fantastic blue tile mosaics. Instead, developers have decided to build nearly identical five and six story apartment buildings that provide the modern living space in which most people seem to live in this city. It would be Portugal's equivalent to the suburbs that surround our North American cities. 

Len  (me) heading across bridge at beginning of ourx el Camino

As we exit the station in Matasinhos, we see no sign of the ocean. We do spot a couple of girls sporting backpacks, one dressed all in camo wearing calf-height army boots. That's different, I say to Nicola, but I bet she's doing the El Camino. So, we follow her onto a bridge over an estuary that blocks the northern coastline from the city of Porto. Once over, we turn left and spot an El Camino station. It's the office of tourist information, a modern building with large glass windows overlooking the beach 

We pull out our pilgrim passports that Nicola ordered in Canada. They're necessary for those wanting to stay in hostels called albergues available to perigrinos (pilgrims) as they make their way to the destination of their pilgrimage, Santiago de Compostela. The el Camino is Called The Way of St. James, in English because the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, contains the remains of the apostle. Pilgrims have been making the journey through the Pyrenees since the 11th Century. Queen Isabel made the pilgrimage from Lisbon during her reign between 1271 and 1336. The coastal route that we're following is more recent joining the original trail as it approaches its destination. 

Passports provide proof that a pilgrim has completed the el Camino or a portion thereof  and is thereby eligible for a certificate. Eligibility for a certificate depends on walking at least 100 kilometres of the camino to reach Santiago de Compostela. 

                                                   

Nicola along the boardwalk

Finding the coastal board walk is not difficult because it's right across the street from the tourist information office. Now, all we have to is walk the 24 kilometres to Vila do Condo. 

We're in high spirits as we begin our trek.  Waves crash on the beach of fine, beige sand that extends as far as the eye can see broken only occasionally by rocky outcrops. Nicola comments that the swimming and surfing will be great later in the season as the air and water get warmer. Being April, the flowers are blooming and amazing. Nicola particularly likes the bright red and yellow rubbery flowers of the Cape Fig.  These plants hug the sand as protection from the wind that blasted off the water. It spreads vine-like along the surface feeling its way for possible sources of nutrients.

A huge oil refinery looms across the road  It's dirty and ugly with pipes leading everywhere emitting exhaust into the crystal blue sky and so big it takes us about hour to walk pass. I remind myself that it would also be a prime source of employment in the area. 

An older guy flashes by at a sprightly pace and wishes us our first “bon Camino." Not long after, as we pass the Obelisk de Memorial, we make way for a young couple who give us the same “bon Camino” greeting. I respond with a shy version of my own. Nicola says nothing. We have yet to feel the communal spirit of those who share the trail.

I wonder why they're walking to fast. Shouldn’t they be enjoying the experience, stopping to enjoy the flowers, view and take pictures of the obelisk commemorating the landing of 7500 men sent by Pedro IV’s men from Brazil on July 8, 1832. They were there to aid the liberation of Portugal from French occupation under Napoleon’s armies. 

Refinery

We stop for lunch at the nearby café built right on the beach and I experience the lightness of foot that comes with relieving oneself of a heavy backpack. We find a table with a great view of the ocean and I notice the other patrons, all Portuguese, who pay us no attention whatsoever despite our bedraggled appearance and the large packs we've dump in the corner. The waiter speaks no English but we're able to communicate our desire for a cokes and sandwiches. We sit in silence as we're already tired even though we're not half way there and it's already 1:30.

Memorial Obelisk

Three kilometres up the trail from where we'd enjoyed lunch, we pass the Lavra Angeiras which are replicas of Roman salt tanks that were used to collect and salt fish. The rock tanks are of trapezoid shape embedded in the sand and look functional. I don't bother taking a picture. On a sign, I read that villagers also harvested seaweed in the area to use as fertilizer for the sandy soil. It's a this point that we notice lots of condominiums or time shares built along the coastline. Unlike in North America, these are built well back from the waterline making the entire beach open to the public.

We pass a couple of old fishing villages that are located right along the coast. Fisherman have pulled their brightly painted heavy boats high up on the beach. Most have one or two large outboard motors and are equipped the latest navigational electronics. Brightly painted houses contrast sharply with the beige coloured sand. Lobster pots are piled alongside nets coiled high in the sand with the requisite buoys attached. One fisherman untangles his fishing net while an interested couple from a parked tour bus look on. 

In the second village, we pass an alburgue where we would have stayed had we not made a reservation at a hotel in Vila do Condo. We haven’t rested since eating our short lunch and we're exhausted. Twenty-four kilometres might have been a bit ambitious for the first day. With Vila do Condo well within our sights, we collapse onto chairs at a beachside café and order ice-cream bars, the first I’ve had in years. Absolutely delicious.

Fishing village

With the addition of a coke, we feel energized enough to walk the five kilometres to our hotel. Instead of following the trail, I use Google Maps to direct us on the fastest course. Maybe a mistake. Hard cement and tarmac combined with boring cityscape frustrates us. It seems stupid to be walking where bike or motorcycle transportation makes a whole lot more sense.

We pass few single home dwellings as most people seem to live in condos or apartments with a shared lawn and gardens. I observe one old guy mowing his lawn in bare feet.  It reminds me of my aunt who cut her toes doing the same thing.

After criss-crossing major thoroughfares, we enter a residential area that's not the ordinary location for a hotel. Our facial expressions must have reflected our confusion about the location and weird house numbering because an older woman approaches us wondering if we need help. We tell her and she repeats something back to us. And we see what. And she repeats what she said and I say what and Nicola says yes. She points to a building with an awning covering a walkway from the street to the front door. We nod our okays but she's not convinced of we're looking at the same building so she motions us to follow. At the door, she yells into an empty entranceway with an walnut reception desk at one end.

Waterfront - Villa Conde

An affable, middle-aged gentleman greets us as he enters from a passageway behind the reception desk. After registering, he insists on taking the backpack from Nicola who has been limping badly. He escorts us to a room on the second floor with two twin beds, a single florescent light in the ceiling and a small bathroom with tub, toilet and bidet. We collapse on our respective beds and discuss our prospects for dinner.

We decide on one of Trip Advisor’s highest rated restaurants for the area even though it requires we walk 600 metres, which doesn't sound like much but double it, you get a kilometre more of walking we'd rather do without. Once out, we're immediately energized  by the beautiful surroundings of beautifully restored ancient structures that line the narrow alleys close to the harbour. 

Our destination has a beautiful view of the harbour. Upon entering the restaurant, we feel Nicola's reservation may have been unnecessary until the waitress seats us at one of the few tables with a view. Outside, sailboats are illuminated by the rose-coloured glow of the sunset. Even though we didn't arrive until 7:30, the majority of the restaurant's patrons don't arrive until after 8:00. Perhaps that's the reason we need a good half-hour to attract the attention of the waitress to pay our bill. Despite the pretensions provided by the appearance of an upscale restaurant, the meal was actually very mediocre. Nevertheless, we feel reinvigorated after our first gruelling day of walking.

View from restaurant

After 25 km., time for dinner

Lobster pots, colourful houses

Day 2 - April 29, 2017 - Vila de Conde to San Pedro de Rates

Stone aquaduct in Vila de Conde

We’d walked too far on the first day so we resolve to take it easy on the second. Our destination for tonight will be San Pedro de Rates, about 15 kilometres to the north and toward the interior of the country. We, or maybe just I, have grown tired of gale force winds howling off the ocean and the repetitive beauty of the rocks, sand dunes and newly blossomed flowers. Ironic, but true. Besides, the coastal route for the el Camino has only recently been completed while the traditional one was followed by Queen Isabella back in the 13th century was through the interior and has been used ever since.  

Not having seen the el Camino markers since leaving the coast, we decide to rely on Google Maps for direction. The fastest route follows a major highway so we use on of the alternative ones. 

As we leave Vila de Conde, we pass the usual businesses that take advantage of cheap real estate; big box stores like Staples and warehouses and car dealerships. However, unique to this city is a stone aqueduct that runs for miles. Unfortunately, road construction has usurped its importance as a structure of beauty and historical import and so parts had been destroyed to make way for the passage of traffic.

In amongst the industrial development is a field and in the field are ponies let loose to run around at their own leisure. We watch them graze and prance and chase one another as if they were showing off to us. Kind of cool.

The industrial area gives way to suburbs and single-dwelling houses. We pass a deserted carpet factory and in a farmer’s field and see the last remnants of the stone aqueduct. Flood lights hidden in the ground under plexiglass must provide a haunting memory of past civilizations to the wealthy occupants of the high-end houses across the street. 

A group of men congregate with their drinks outside a pub and to my surprise, they nod a friendly hello. We understood that the scarcity of el Camino direction signs is a consequence of the locals removing them or painting overtop the arrows so at least here, they don’t hate us.

The sweet aroma of shit

As houses give way to fields surrounded by stone walls, I observe a farmer weed-wacking a one-acre field of grass. This must be a very slow process indeed. In another field, I watch a farmer use his tractor to pull a tank that sprays what looks and smells like poop, the ultimate environmentally friendly fertilizer. Why don’t we do that? I wonder.

And then, we arrive at the forest. What are these trees? I ask Nicola. I didn’t recognized the drooping, coniferous branches attached to tall, barkless trunks. “Can’t you smell them?” she asks. “Not really,” I reply. “They’re eucalyptus,” she explains as if to a three-year-old. 

Then, we see smoke and realize they must be burning brush cleared from around the trees which

Walking through eucalyptus forest

reminds us of the FireSmart program recently initiated in Alberta.   Nicola wonders whether forest fires are a problem in Portugal. We’d seen what looked like a fire in the distance while walking along the beach the previous day. I assure her that it must happen. [In June, Portugal would hit headlines around the world when over 60 people died in wildfires.] 

At the start of a downhill stretch, we hit a t-intersection. The road we’d been following turns right. A dirt track that leads to the left is Google Maps tells us to follow and, to our amazement, so too does a pale-yellow el camino arrow we spot that's been sprayed onto a rotting wooden post. So, that’s what they look like, I explain. Nicola nods her head disdainfully because, of course, she’s read the guide book. She complains that I was supposed to plan this trip and all I did was book the flights. “I purchased the guidebook,” I retort. She doesn’t bite. My idea of planning a trip and hers are radically different. 

Nicola walking through field beside the muck

As we reach the bottom of the hill, Google Maps directs us across a farmer’s field on a barely recognizable dirt road filled with water and muck. We walk beside it across stiff stalks of freshly mown hay eventually arriving at a narrow gravel road. We follow that until it opens onto a plain and we see our destination, San Pedro, off in the distance. As we walk along the road, we are forced to make way for a handsome, young farmer driving a tractor pulling a shit-smelling metal tank. He smiles and waves and we wave back. 

We arrive in the almost deserted small town of San Pedro at a little after 12:00 noon. We admire the old church built in the 1200s, its altar covered with white roses. The arrangement and the narrow confines of the church, Igreja San Pedro de Rates, force the eye upwards to a statue of Jesus hanging from the cross. He's a bit hard to see in the photo because he's illuminated by the light from the window at the end of the sanctuary

Across the square from the old church is the tiny Chapel to Our Lady with room for only four or five chairs. It also has been festooned with white roses.

Altar with white roses

We decide to eat at the Pizzaria, which is very highly rated on Trip adviser, located on the main street not far from the sole gas station in town. As the only patrons, we have to rouse the young waiter, bar tender and for all I know cook, from behind the counter. We order their specialty pizza and two glasses of Super Boch beer. Fortunately, these mediocre lagers perfectly complement the mediocre pizza that we leave only half consumed.

Chapel to Our Lady in Rates

With half the day left to walk we seriously consider continuing onto. We only just pass the local alburgue on our way out of town when Nicola’s scarred and damaged ankle seized so that it wouldn’t bend. She could only walk by holding it to the side and rotating her hip. Fellow pilgrims wonder what the fuck she's trying to do walking the el Camino. 

We return to the hostel, a picturesque converted farm house. Our hosts stamp our passports and then assign us each a bunk bed in a room with three other bunk beds and a cot. Kitchen facilities are available down the hall. The lower floor has another room of bunks, common showers for men and women, and toilets. 

We enjoy dinner at a dining lounge just down the street from the pizzeria.  White table cloths cover the 20 or so tables that fill a large room with flat-screen televisions suspended on the wall on each end. The waiter turns on the lights and we find a table for two against the wall. About 15 minutes later, three burly guys arrive with a toddler in tow.

Chapel to our Lady

All sit on the same side of a table for six facing the television closest to us to watch soccer. They  the toddler is placed in a high chair at one end where the most burly of the characters googles at him all night. A little later, the mom shows up and sits across from the guy I assume to be his dad. Apparently, she wasn’t interested in soccer.

We return to the alburgue to share a small bottle of wine we’d purchased at the local grocery store earlier in the day. We’d been directed there by the alburgue hosts. It's a small, dimly lit place with shelves half empty of produce. That said, it did have a decent selection of wine. In the now-empty kitchen of the alburgue, we find two wine glasses and take them to the dining room next door. I survey the book shelves while Nicola pours the wine. I wonder if the mostly German books on the shelves reflected the relative number of German pilgrims on the el Camino.

We've just started enjoying our beverage when one of the hosts arrives to ask if we could keep completely quiet for a couple of minutes. A film crew wants to capture the sound of the ticking clock. I’d wondered about the woman with a large boom mike passing through the room a couple of minutes earlier. As a reward for our silence, the host offers us a glass of wine from the bottle from the back room. Much better than ours. 

Tower separate from church - Unusual we were told

You’d think that after consuming two large glasses of wine, we’d be ready to sleep. Impossible. We enter a completely dark bunk where I arrange my sleeping bag on the upper bunk. Thunderous snoring sounds blast from both sides of the room. I'll never sleep in here. Drugs, I think. Codeine. That’ll put me to sleep. That and some music. I’ll listen to music. Utterly exhausted, I can only toss and  turn in the cacophony. After a good half-hour, I vent on Facebook to my friends back home. The situation became so ridiculous, that I start laughing. My mirth must be contagious because a couple of other giggles emanate from the darkness. Apparently, not everyone is asleep. I get a comment on Facebook from my daughter, Earplugs, she writes. It’s the first rule of hostels. A little late now, I think. 

Nicola liked the hanging vines