Camino de Santiago (2022)
Inhalt/Content
Stage 2: Joudina (Gião) – Pedra Furada
After our first stage, we slept more than well. We got up and had a hearty breakfast at the hostel. Then our second stage started. We had long since left Porto behind and the landscapes were now much more beautiful. A question that we hear more often and that many people ponder when researching the Camino de Santiago is what one can actually do along the way (except walking of course). Yes, you hike and enjoy nature, and yes, if you don’t walk alone, as in our case, you also talk to each other, but nature, as beautiful as it may be, doesn’t change every 2m and at some point you have everything to each other said. For some people, this is where the spiritual experience begins, but I personally don’t get much with it. Of course, it’s nice to come to rest, but we didn’t do the path for the “great enlightenment”. I know from other reports and videos from pilgrims that they often also listened to podcasts, audio books, or music. That was a good thing, as Kevin and I discovered the singer Alligatoah just before the trip. So Kevin had loaded the corresponding albums onto his mobile phone and each of us had a plug in our ear through which we listened to the really good lyrics, which were not entirely suitable for minors. After a few days, I created a playlist from our favorite songs, which we then listened to over and over again. There may be people who turn up their noses when they read that we walked the Camino with songs like “Willst Du” or “Fick ihn doch” in our ears (and after a few days we happily sang along as soon as we were more familiar with the lyrics), but who dictates how to walk the Camino? Who says you may or may not listen to music while doing it? And if so, which songs are appropriate and which ones aren’t? Exactly. We discussed the lyrics and sang along loudly when we passed a deserted section of the path. And we really had fun doing it. So maybe this is exactly the right way to walk the Camino de Santiago.
“Denk an die Kinder” just faded in our ears when we reached the small town of Viarão. Here the yellow arrows led us on a small detour up to the chapel of Santo Ovídio with a really big swing next to it. We each sat in the swing and while one after the other rocked back and forth, we got closer and closer to the horizon with the beautiful view. The swing should only be the first little surprise on today’s stage. We kept coming across numerous little things for pilgrims: A church with a figure of the pilgrim James, a small resting area with water and free freshly picked tangerines, which we tried directly, other pilgrim figures, signs showing how many kilometers it was to Santiago and finally a fairly redesigned recreation spot with lots of greenery and plenty of shoes. In between, we picked up our first stamps for today quite easily in a pilgrim café. The paths were not always optimal that day, Kevin likes to complain about too many stones that are too sharp. In general, the way today was much more strenuous than the day before. However, we weren’t really used to it either, it was only day 2. Since we were traveling outside of the actual season, we were mostly alone everywhere. Today, however, we saw another pilgrim from afar, but he was traveling so fast that after a short time he left us behind without even noticing us. In between, we had a lunch break in a bar, which looked small from the outside, but was quite big inside. I ordered another cappuccino but got an espresso instead. This should happen to me more often in the next few days. To this day I’m not quite sure if people in Portugal use the word cappuccino for espresso, but it would explain a lot.
Finally, exhausted, we arrived at our accommodation. This was again a private hostel. We could choose between the dormitory and a private room and because the latter wasn’t that expensive, we treated ourselves to the luxury of privacy. Through the opened door we saw that another pilgrim was in the dormitory, but it wasn’t the one we saw earlier. We didn’t get a chance to talk to him either, since he stayed only in the dorm without exiting it at any point. The hostel was really pretty. There was a pool but it was too cold to swim at this time of year. There was also a kitchen with a supply of walnuts and coffee. The kitchen was still decorated with hearts and roses from Valentine’s Day. Behind the building, there was a garden with orange trees with juicy ripe oranges hanging from them. We immediately picked the largest and most beautiful orange for our breakfast tomorrow.
Diagonally across from the hostel there was a restaurant specializing in pilgrims. This is a widespread business model anyway. If there is an hostel or an albergue somewhere, there is usually a pilgrim restaurant with pilgrim menus next to it. So we ate our first pilgrim menu for dinner: vegetable soup, rice with beans and spinach, and fish croquettes. After all the hardships of the day, we scooped up the delicious food and savored it. Pilgrim menus tend to be huge, and they’re very cheap, which we’ve learned is due to one very specific detail: they’re usually untaxed. You only get the cheap pilgrim prices if you pay in cash and of course, there is no receipt at the end. The restaurant also sold scallop shells, which we also bought two of, so each of us had a shell hanging from our backpacks. This is how our second day on the Portuguese Camino ended. A last look at our smartphones didn’t tell us anything good: It should rain for the next 2-3 days.
