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Espinho, Portugal

What a wonderful surprise to get a message from our Portuguese friend Helen de Pinho to say that she has an apartment just south of Porto – if I want I could stay there for a few days. Espinho is on the coast, and I decide to absolutely take her up on her offer. Peace and quiet. My night in the hotel was a nightmare. I cannot for the life of me believe how thin the walls could be. At 22h00 a group of Portuguese guests arrived. The were welcomed with loud greetings as if they are long lost friends not seen for years. Dragging suitcases and hatboxes and trunks and God knows what up the stairs past my bedroom, then re-arranging the furniture to suit their needs, then stomping up and down the stairs (with what sounded like Dutch clogs), until I eventually succumbed to putting in my earplugs. (It is very difficult for me to sleep with the earplugs, as it feels as if someone is trying to clean my ears with a cricket bat. Every time I turn around, I wake up). Anyway, they work and eventually I fall asleep with the sound of my own “heavy breathing” ringing in my head.

The hotel key is metal, attached to a metal ring which holds a metal plate the size of a playing card. At 02h00 (I had to take out the earplugs as they are really uncomfortable) my neighbour is trying to get into his bedroom. Try as he may, he cannot get the door open. The key and chain and metal plate clanging and dangling and metalling against the door, to no avail. The door will not open. What he obviously does not know, is that to open the door there is a button that needs to be pushed once you have unlocked it. So he fiddles and clangs and bangs and clangs and metals until I think I am going to actually explode. Eventually I get up, get dressed, go outside and unlocks the door for him. At this very point I realised that I am the Dalai Lama. I have evolved after twelve days of walking the Caminho to become calm, forgiving and kind.

At 03h30, I am woken up by the loud sound of water dripping – a slow, loud, definite drip. I put the earplugs in again. Seconds later I am woken by my own “heavy” breathing. Earplugs out. Dripping. Ok, I get up to try and find the dripping. This entails drawing up the shutters (something akin to a drawbridge in a medieval castle), opening the windows (which is not as easy as one would think) and finding the drip in the shaft outside my window, where thanks to heavy rain the water is now dripping off a blocked gutter onto my window sill. I go to the bathroom, fold a towel and put it onto the window sill. Close window, close shutter, let’s try again. Earplugs in, deep this time, even though it feels as if someone has now taken the cricket bat and is turning it around inside my ear. I am however so tired, that I eventually fall asleep and wake up at 10h00! (Earplugs somewhere in the bed next to me).

I go to find breakfast, an exciting array of breadrolls and a croissant that is actually just a sweet breadroll in disguise. At least the coffee is strong. It is raining, literally, the cats and dogs type. I take my time packing in the hope that it will subside. It doesn’t. Eventually I leave the hotel in my raingear. Five minutes later I am yet again in my “sweat suit”. I cannot believe how hot it gets in this rain jacket and pants – literally like walking in your own little sauna. Well, that is how it will be today. I envision how much weight I will lose with all this sweating. Thing is, it is really really uncomfortable in my many ways. There is nothing I can do about it however, so I just walk. Mind over matter.

The road is dreary – backstreets of industrial parks and suburbia. I stop for coffee a few times, enjoying the company of locals who obviously use Sundays as family time. They are all out in the their Sunday best, extended families enjoying their day together. The aim is to catch a bus from Vergada to Espinho. I walk into Vergana, wet to the bone, and am extremely fortunate to find out that the next bus will be at 16h15, from right across the restaurant. I have enough time for a beer, which after all the perspiration I think is the sensible thing to consume. At 16h02 I cross the road to the bus stop, knowing how European public transport is always on time. At the bus stop, I am suprised to see a man that earlier in the day was at one of the restaurants I stopped at. That was a few hours ago, and he was drunk out of his bracket. He has about six bottom teeth, all of them rotten beyond repair. He is one those jovial drunk people. He insisted on shaking my hand, and having long conversations with me in spite of my indicating that I do not understand a word he says. He kept on – going through “Francais?” then “Spanish?” then “Italiano?” etc. I just shook my head, having no desire what so ever to speak to him. Well, here he was again, just a few glasses drunker than a few hours ago. It was like to return of the prodigal son, if I did not protest he would have kissed me with his little rotten teeth and all. This time there was a woman with him, trying her best to ignore him. They had several bags and suitcases, and he was on top form. Every few minutes he would phone someone, speaking as loud as he possibly could, performing like only a drunk man could. When he hung up, he again went through the language ritual with me. I shook my head. All this time the rain was pelting down, and there was only place for one person under the bus shelter, so him and I were on either side of the woman. She was smoking one cigarette after the other, not interested in his story at all. In between his telephone calls and trying to converse with me, he would have hectic arguments with her. We waited for 45 minutes in the pouring rain with this little circus playing out. No bus. Just before 17h00 a car stopped and picked them up – I wanted to do the “singing in the rain” interlude from pure relief that I was saved from having to spend another minute with this lunatic.

Just after five I decided that I cannot sit in the rain any longer, beginning to wonder what the hell I am doing here after all. I have a house and a car and a life – here I am sitting at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere in the pouring rain. Have I lost my mind? SO – I decide to hit the road and start walking. I could manage a bit of internet at the cafe which told me it would be a 2 hour walk to Espinho. No problem. Only problem was that there were no yellow arrows to Espinho, and I had no idea how to get there. I saw some signs which quickly brought me to a highway, where it was clearly indicated that human beings are not allowed to walk. I was stuffed. I decided to simply follow my instincts and start walking. Eventually I got to a biggish town, where a friendly waitress spoke english and told me that she will order me a taxi to get to Espinho. And here I am. Safe and sound.

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