Day 3 - April 30, 2017, San Pedro de Rates to Barcelos

Only two ladies are still in the room when we rise at 7:00 a.m. Obviously we are out of sync 

Picturesque county lanes leading out of Rates

with many of our fellow el Camino pilgrims. I’d woken a couple of times in the night for extended periods of time and listened to a combination of music and podcasts. Sometimes, the codeine made me feel like I was awake when really I was asleep. I remember falling asleep listening to the “Monocle Foreign Desk” and what seemed like two minutes later, I awoke in the middle of a dream about religion listening to Mary Hynes from the CBC religious podcast, “Tapestry.” 

For breakfast, we climb the hill to the edge of town to enjoy a croissant and coffee at the local café with a bunch of other pilgrims from the alburgue. Being Sunday, they seem like the café’s only patrons. Mostly German.

From Sao Pedro de Rates, we follow cobblestone roads through pretty villages with immaculately manicured gardens, through forests and then farms bordered by ancient stone fences. In the distance, we hear fireworks or mortar fire. Obviously, it's not the latter but, being the middle of the day, I’m not sure what people are expected to see.

Bridge in Barcelos 

At about 10:00 a.m., we pass a café beside a major road the camino follows for a short distance. We check the door. Open! Yeah! Inside, we order cokes and seat ourselves at a corner table. The interior looks Bavarian with varnished wood walls and low, three legged tables with accompanying stools to sit on, a long, oak bar with beer mugs hanging above. Contrasting the Bavarian theme is a trombone, saxophone, clarinet and various other instruments hanging from the wall. To augment the jazz theme, bllack and white photos of the greats like John Coltrane and Ella Fitzgerald decorate the wall. I wonder if the bar hosts jazz performances at night.

A few minutes after our arrival, a German couple with their daughter arrive and sit at a table in the other corner of the café. All three are so impressively fit that, from a distance, a casual observer might think the mom and daughter are sisters. The mom goes up to the bar and requests three glasses of wine from the portly, middle-aged hostess. “We don’t serve wine until noon,” she's told. “How about beer?” the mom enquire with her cryptic German 

Preparing for parade 

accent. “Sure,” is the reply and she promptly receives three small, 20 cc size glasses filled with insipid Super Boch lager. “I had no idea,” I say to Nicola. “Yah, she replies. “Next time, we order beers.” 

After leaving, we pass more picturesque fields guarded by stone farm houses before arriving at Barcelos, our destination, at about 12:30. Because Nicola’s foot had given her so much trouble the first day, we’d decided to shorten our ed Camino by taking a bus to Tui, a Spanish city a little over 100 kilometres from  Santiago de Compostela, the distance required to receive a certificate upon arrival. For reasons we didn’t understand, all the hotels in Barcelos were full so Nicola had reserved a room for the night in the nearby city of Braga. We’d take a taxi there from Barcelos and a bus to Tui the next day.

We cross the city's ancient bridge, the Ponte Medieval, walk up the hill and past the the city hall. There, I spot a group of

Nicola communing with locals

people dressed in traditional costumes preparing for something. The women wear embroidered dresses with a colourful shawl 
around their shoulders. The men’s costumes looked mildly Hasidic with a white shirt, black pants, black suit jacket and bowler-type hats with a wide rim. They also wear a sash that one man is wrapping around another’s waist. Kind of cool. It makes me wonder what the heck is going. 

We follow main street, Rua de Antonio Barros until we arrived at a Perigrino café located inside an ugly, deserted 80s style building. We walk down a long hallway past abandoned shops to the end where a group of tables are set up under a glass ceiling. The contrast with the surrounding architecture could not be more stark. Solid stone walls have been replaced with drywall supported by steel beams painted a putrid pale green.

A grandma supervising her granddaughter volunteers to stamp our passports. We order a sandwich and beer from the mom and sit down at a table next to a very tall sixtyish  lady probably in her mid-sixties. Obviously keen on conversation, she asks if we are peregrinos and I'm tempted to ask her, What gave you that idea? Our backpacks. Our Canadian/ American accents? I guess her to be a retired teacher from Australia.

Avenue de Liberdad

She tells that she's walked from Lisbon and decided to take a day off in Barcelos. Coincidentally, she needs to reach Santiago de Compostela on the same day we do. We talk about walking in Canada and the danger of bears. She relates our problem to that of kangaroos on wilderness walks in Australia. We have a pleasant conversation but I never learn her name which is basically common practice on the el Camino. Meet someone, spend an evening in their company and never learn their name. 

We leave the café and continued to follow Rua D Antonio Barrosa to the main square on Avenue da Liberdada. We pass beneath lights that extend over the street that provide a ghostly approximation of how they might appear at night lit up. Just prior to entering the main square, we spot the words “Fiesta Des Cruxes” on a large unlit sign hanging from a church. Ahh, we think. The Festival of the Crosses. So, that's what it is.

This being Sunday and the Fiesta Des Cruxes", dozens of families wander the street, couples walk arm in arm and men

Parade in Barcelos

and women in traditional costume parade down the street. They play guitars and bass drums and sing what must be traditional Portuguese folk songs. It could have been fado. Nicola thinks all fado songs sound the same. I have no opinion. Not my cup of tea. 

We follow a parade for half a block before the sky opens up and we dart for cover in a nearby café in a narrow building with four floors. Each floor has about six tables. Fortunately, we find a table on the third. Dragging the packs up all those steps was fun. We  order cappuccinos and talked about our plans. Since Nicola is finding walking much easier, we decide to continue the el Camino according to our original itinerary. We'll just absorb the cost of our bus tickets to Tui

Our immediate problem is finding accommodation in Barcelos. All the rooms are booked for those celebrating the festival. My solution is to walk a little further, and take a taxi to Braga where we’d booked a hotel. In the morning, we could return to the spot where we’d left off and thereby not cheat on our camino at all.  

When we leave the café, the rain has stopped and the sun is out. We explore the giant market taking place in the park next to the Avenue de Liberdade. Souvenirs, clothing, undergarments, fresh produce of both the vegetable and fruit variety are all for sale. Nicola wants a ceramic cock (the rooster variety) to replace the one given to her by Aunty Peggy and subsequently broken. The story of the rooster as a

Nicola poses beside a giant cock

harbinger of good luck originated in Barcelos. It goes like this: 

A guy gets unfairly accused and condemned for stealing silver. On his way to the gallows, he asks to speak to the judge who’s at a feast. Pointing to a cooked cock sitting on a plate, the man says to the judge. "It is as certain that I am innocent as it is certain that this rooster will crow when they hang me." The cock crows as the man's about to be hanged, the judge races to the gallows only to discover that the man's already been hanged. Only the knot doesn't hold and he lives! For that reason, the Portuguese believe the cock brings good luck. 

After visiting the market, we began our trek out of town all the time looking for an albergue in which 
to spend the night. Unfortunately, we find only walk-up apartment buildings and small businesses. After a couple of kilometres, we realize that we're obviously lost. We return to town where we spot a line of taxis beside the market. One driver who speaks English offers to take us to Braga for 30€ but I reply that we aren't quite ready to go. He gives us his card and tells us to phone him when we are.

We return to the the Ponte Medieval, cross it and stop at a café advertising pilgrim meals. When we ask a heavy set, balding guy, who I presume is the proprietor, about where to 
find the albergue, he calls out to a young woman walking by on the street. Short with blond, mid-length hair, she waves for to us to follow. A two-minute walk takes us around the block to a modern, two story building with a nice view of the river.

Long day for Nicola

She gives us the code for the building and tells us that the door will be locked at 10:00 p.m. She shows us a state of the art kitchen and lounge on the main floor and the dorm and washrooms on the second. In the dorm, she assigns us to bunks, each with a shelf and electrical outlet to plug in a phone. Nice. We shower in beautiful, modern bathrooms with lights that turn off when the motion sensor detects no movement. Unfortunately, motion isn'’t detected as I'm standing in the shower with shampoo in my hair. In total darkness, I feel my way to the curtain and pull it open. Voila. The light turns back on. Before the lights turned off again, another guy comes into the bathroom to shave and my problem 
is solved.

Dinner that night is in a tiny restaurant down a narrow alley located just off, Rua D. Antonio Barraso. Excited to practice her English, the waitress kindly describes every single item on the menu. Nicola choses the Especial, the francistina, and I go for the roast beef. Then I order one of the beers from the fridge just behind my right shoulder. Unfortunately, my pointing and mispronunciation gets misinterpreted and a large bottle of beer arrives called Deus. 

We didn't eat here but perfect for churiso fans

Avenue de Liberdad at night

Nicola really likes her francistina which consists of a steak topped with a large glob of cheese and gravy. She says she’ll try to make it back home. The roast beef's okay but the beer is exceptional. The problem is, I didn't realize how exceptional. When the bill arrives, the cost of the beer was 45€ which more than doubled the price of our entire meal. [Nicola has since discovered that the Deus beer is one of the best beers of its type in the world. It’s called a Champagne beer sharing similar qualities to Champagne and is 
very difficult to find.]

We stroll down Rua Barjona to the central square awed by the now visible lights strung across the avenue in 20-metre intervals. It's like Christmas times five. Some strings contained three crosses, all in lights. Otthers have flowers and swirls and all are fantastic. A huge stage stands at one end of the square with a drum kit, mikes, and speakers awaiting a band or bands to use them. Unfortunately, we have to be back to the alburgue or we’ll get locked out so we didn’t get to hear any music.

Like the previous night, everyone is in bed and asleep when we arrive. So I climb into my bunk as quietly as possible. Now, the bunks are arranged so that every two are pushed right beside the other. When my bag of pills crinkle upon opening, the lady sleeping within inches of my head, 

Nicola feeling revived.

mutters something in German and rolls the other way. I complete my bed preparation and then try to sleep. Only the lady snores, without interruption for the entire night, like she's incapable of breath without mucous catching on her esophageal flap. It's so loud I fear she may be in distress. I attempt to drown out the noise by listening to music and podcasts and medicating myself with codeine. Eventually, I turn in bed so my head is by the ladder and her feet but I still sleep poorly. Earplugs next time. 

Back of the main stage