Travel

Camino de Santiago (2022)

Stage 3: Pedra Furada – Portela de Tamel

The weather forecast turned out to be right: the next day the rain caught up with us. We put on our rain ponchos and started walking. Despite the rain, the first part of the route was quite pleasant. It was mostly flat and here and there small things for pilgrims could be discovered, such as beautiful tiles with the route on them. At this stage, we also crossed Barcelos. This was a slightly larger city where many pilgrims stop. But since it was only 9.7 km away from Pedra Furada and we still had enough strength, we decided to continue marching. Nevertheless, we were able to look at a part of the city while crossing, albeit clouded by the rain. We stopped at Barcelos Cathedral as we figured it might be a good spot for stamps. There was no one inside the cathedral itself, but the door to the sacristy was open and inside the priest was counting large sums of money with another man. The banknotes were clearly too big for the collection. A little sheepishly we drew attention to ourselves. The pastor put the money away and waved us in. We explained that we were pilgrims and needed stamps (because of the lack of Portuguese knowledge, this was done with hands and feet again) and the priest also gave us the desired stamps. Back outside we looked a little disappointed in our pilgrim passports, because of all the stamps these were the most boring so far, and that with such a cathedral. Nevertheless, we had our first stamps for today in our pockets and were able to move on.

The weather finally cleared up a bit, but the last few kilometers went uphill again. Shortly before our destination, it started to rain again, so shortly afterward we were standing in the pilgrim hostel of Portela de Tamel. It was right next to a church and was our first municipal albergue. The municipal albergues have a certain reputation. Some only sleep there on principle, and others do everything to avoid them. If you see pictures of the Camino with people lying in uncomfortable bunk beds in dormitories and covering their ears from loud snoring, then these are usually the municipal albergues. There are no private rooms here, let alone a private bathroom, and only those with a pilgrim passport are allowed in. The prices are really cheap, but you can’t stay longer than one night, because you should get further on the pilgrimage and not stay in one place for too long. On the one hand, I was a bit afraid of the state pilgrim hostels, but on the other hand, I was also curious. In this case, my fears were unfounded.

The next moment Carlos, the host of this albergue, greeted us with a friendly: “Welcome pilgrims”. He showed us where we could leave our wet clothes and where we could dry off before asking us for our pilgrim passports and explaining everything else. There were multiple dorms so Kevin and I had an entire small dorm to ourselves. After we got rid of our wet clothes and washed and hung up our laundry, we looked around the hostel a little. There was a kitchen with a coin-operated coffee machine that I used directly. Since the hostel was quite remote, there was a small lockable display case with groceries that you could buy from Carlos. There was also another showcase with souvenirs. Since we always had to carry everything with us, in contrast to our other trips, we were very careful this time when it came to souvenirs. Nonetheless, Kevin bought at least a small figurine of a rooster, which was a regional landmark here. We chatted a little with Carlos, who was very passionate about his work here. He has walked the Camino de Santiago himself and knows the stages quite well. Next to the reception, there was a stage recommendation with an elevation profile. We noticed something that concerned Kevin in particular: a (the only one, to be precise) mountain stage was coming up soon. Contrary to our plans to go 20km every day, Carlos recommended that we walk 25km to Ponte de Lima tomorrow. On the one hand, this is a very beautiful city and therefore a good destination, and on the other hand, from there to Rubiãs, the first place after the mountain stage, it is only 17.8 km, so that we would then even be less than 20 km and therefore have more strength. After a moment’s thought and looking at the elevation profile, we decided to take Carlo’s advice, which was probably spot on.

Besides us, there was another pilgrim in the albergue. It was an elderly bearded man, pen in hand, drawing in a large notebook in front of him. Since he was so absorbed in it, we didn’t speak to him at first. When we later came down to the common area, Carlos was talking to him. “Look, an artist-pilgrim,” he said, showing us an open page with some really well-drawn portraits. The artist’s name was Marinus and he was from the Netherlands. He was a proud 70 years old and this was his third Camino, but his first alone. He walked the first two Caminos with a donkey and a dog at his side. After the death of the animals, Marinus does not want to get another animal, for the time being, so he now walks his third Camino de Santiago alone. As a pensioner, he has plenty of time and so he relaxedly walks from town to town and draws in his notebook what he sees. As mentioned, the pictures are really very good and Marinus even has his own blog where you can learn a lot about him and also view selected works: https://marinusth.com/
Of course, there was a restaurant opposite the albergue with a pilgrim menu. Since we were the only pilgrims in the albergue, we suggested to Marinus that we go out to eat together, which he accepted. So we talked throughout the evening about our experiences so far and he talked about his Camino and what it’s like to hike with a donkey. Marinus is an incredibly inspiring person and I would like nothing more than to still have enough strength and health at the age of 70 to be able to make such a journey, too. By the way, the pilgrim menu was a long time coming this time (we waited well over an hour), but it was really a lot. At least we had the opportunity to talk to Marinus for a long time.

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