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Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal

The walk into Viana do Castelo hugs the peaceful river Lima as she gracefully opens up into the sea. Whilst still on the surface, her massive body moves at quite a speed, so mesmerizing that I have to take off my pack and just go an sit on her bank for a while to soak it all up. The sun is setting, my body is at breaking point, but the world can wait. I have business here. When I eventually get up, a man with a camera walks up to me showing me pictures that he took of me in the sunset, very pleased with himself. When I show my appreciation, he is even more pleased. Simple pleasures. Sunday evening, and the village is more dead than usual. Chairs stacked up outside cafe’s and restaurant bares testimony to the fact that it will have to be sandwich again for supper. After quite a bit of searching, I find the youth hostel, tucked away in the basement of an unmarked building close to the river. I go down the ramp, and is welcomed to Youth Hostel Caminha. For all of 5 euro, the offer the following: – no sheets – no pillows – no towel – no breakfast – no wifi – a bunk bed in a dormitory with 20 bunks – hot showers – disposable cover for the matresss – 22h00 curfew There are no other options in the town, I am walking the Caminho, I can pull up my bigboy undies and do it. Thanks to Sally I have a travel towel (those chamoise type that feel really creepy against your skin) and a silk liner. Also from previoius experience I packed my own pillow case – I have had sleepless nights with the smell of cigarette smoke on a pillowcase. So, I stuff a spare blanket (there are only two other people in the dorm) in the pillow case, put the paper over the hard plastic cover of the matresss, and go in search of food. As I am about to leave the hostel, Marco clocks in! I make a quick escape after friendly greetings. Walking up and down town, there is very little choice. There is one restaurant open, but it is crazy expensive. When I see one I like, Marco is sitting in a corner. I am about to give it up and buy a packet of chips and a coke, when I see a light down a side street saying “Jeni’s Diner” – “A real American Diner”. Yea right. Well, I have little choice. The interior is pink and lime green, very bright lights and no customers, which is never a good sign. I walk in, ask the lady behind the counter (whose hair is dyed the same pink as the chairs) if she speaks english. “I am from New York” she replies. I am not sure if I should be glad or disappointed, but decide I should eat and get before I am locked out as a result of the 22h00 curfew. So Jeni, with the pink hair, grew up in New York but her parents and grandparents are from Portugal. When her grandfather became very ill, she came here to help, and decided to stay. She is now married with a man from the USA, and they have a cute baby girl that I also meet. The bacon and cheese burger is a huge treat, with some of the best chips ever. (The Portuguese potatoes are something special – there is a really buttery, waxy variety of potato that is served with Bacalhau, and obviously used for these chips. They have a soft, rich texture and is almost yellow in colour.) With a few glasses of the housewine (that has also not disappointed to date), I am ready for a night in the youth hostel. SO I thought…. Back at the ranch, Marco and the two Spaniards are asleep already, and I have to fumble around in the dark. (Thank goodness I am so organised that I have a tiny little torch, thanks to Cundy and Sebs). I slip into my silk liner (very sensual) and settle in for the night. The blanket over my delicious silk liner is scratchy, it even scratches me right through the liner. If I throw it off, there is a draft from the open window above me. I cannot sleep with the windows closed, so I will just snuggle, I usually fall asleep within seconds and then I am hot in any case. I have my little travel pillow under my blanket/pillow/home-pillowcase contraption. Within minutes, the blanket inside the pillowcase turns to stone. So I have to put the travel (kidney shaped) travel pillow on top. It has a tiny little whole in it which I managed to tie up with the cord that is attached to the pillow, which obviously has come loose, so now I have a gazillion little hollow fibre miniscule balls in my bed. I get rid of those, tie a knot over the whole in the travel pillow again, and go to sleep. Not. Every time someone turns around, the metal bunk beds creak, and the plastic cover of the mattresses complains. A loud, plastic complain. Every time I turn around, the plastic creaks and complains. And the paper cover is not big enough to stick to the mattress, so it is now all creased underneath me. If I turn, the plastic complains. The Spaniard snores. Not loud, but just enough to keep me awake. At 01h30 I get up, wrap the silk liner around me and decide to go and write my blog. At 02h30 I am back in bed, hearing the church bell chime at 03h00. Minutes later, a cock starts crowing. I am wide awake. Of course, just as the Spaniards are getting out of bed, I want to doze off. So I get up and hope to find a place open for coffee. Thankfully the coffee shop next to the Youth Hostel is open and has wifi. I wolf down to double espressos and a croissant (well, the stodgy Portuguese version of something that looks like a croissant) and feel ready for the day. On my way to catch the ferry, I bump into Marco who is sitting on a bench next to the river, ready to have his breakfast consisting of three carrots, three turnips, a banana and a mango, and a bottle of water. In his rucksack he has a state of the art vegetable peeler! (He also has clean clothes for about every second day, a set up flannel pajamas and a matching pillow that his daughter made for him), Well, now I know why we are such worlds apart! I am sure he feels a million times better than I do on caffeine and stodge, but I will not swap my breakfast for his in a million years! As I arrive at the ferry that will take me across the river to be able to walk the coastal route, I am told that there is no ferry today. It is Monday. No sign, no reason, no ferry – point. So, I have to take the inland route. And again, it is so amazing to walk along cobbled roads with high stone packed walls, as if these have been left for thousands of years for me to discover again. It is so quiet, and with that it quiets the mind. The Hallelujas are gone (thank goodness), I now just walk and breath with the moss and the fearns. At one point in one of those typical little villages, the arrows point right up the front stairs of a tiny little stone cottage, literally to the front door, where an arrow points to the right. The front door is open, and there sits an old woman of maybe 90 or more, four bottom teeth left in her mouth, looking down at me. I stop in my tracks, looking left and right to see if I am maybe missing something, but she gently waves me towards her en nods her head. Yes, this is the way. Right past my front door. And it is these quiet moments, the shared smile (toothless and all), a nod of the head, the “boa viage” of a stranger that is so sincere, that makes this an unforgettable journey. Even though today is only 19,65 kms, the terrain is uneven, with lots of up and downhill stretches. Walking downhill is a *****. It feels as is someone is taking a blowtorch to my thigh muscles when I go downhill. And of course you know that what goes down must go up again. After last night, I decide that I am treating myself to a hotel tonight, there is no way that I am going to go through that drama again. Caminha is still on the river, another small village with a mix of old and new. rich and poor, young and old. Of course, as I sit down to write my blog and eat a tuna salad, who shall appear? Marco. Looking bright eyed and bushy tailed after so many carrots and turnips and fruit.

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