Camino de Santiago Portuguese Day 3 (September 2024)

 

Our third-day journey was walking approximately 25 km to Viana de Castelo. Since our first two days were walking on flat roads, we thought that the entire journey would be like that. Oh, what a misjudgment!

It was a foggy start. The area was quite foggy and we started with caution. Jay Yoon faced a challenge after two days of walking. He developed a blister on one of his toes. Moreover, he popped it and removed the skin expecting a faster healing that way. It turned out to be another misjudgment. It kept bothering him for the rest of the walk. But, we marched on.

Initially, the road was flat and we expected a long but not-too-difficult walk. But, soon after an hour or so, the route was getting into the hills and mountains. We had to pass over a mountain. The unexpectedly tough road made our walking very painful, particularly Jay Yoon. But, we kept pushing through.  

After a hungry journey to pass over the mountain, we could not find a good restaurant. We found a cafe but it was so crowded and we had to settle for a light meal after a long wait.

This type of housing was called an albergue where the pilgrims stayed.

We crossed a river and we remained smiling at the refreshing water.

The mountain pathway was rugged and rocky, which seems to be a norm for other Camino routes. Also, in the mountain pathways, we could not find any store or restaurant where we could eat snacks or meals. We had to rely on trail mix snacks and beef jerky that we brought. They were quite useful and delicious.

When we passed by sunflowers and a landmark indicating the distances to various cities. We smiled at each other, with a contented heart of doing something like this at our ages.

Camino means way. "Buen Camino" is a greeting among the pilgrims cheering for each other. It means Good Way. Camino is a noun but it could also mean "I walk." 

After we passed over a mountain, we had to cross over a river on a bridge. It was windy and the bridge was quite long. At the end, we checked into a humble lodging, a pension style. But the dinner was quite nice. Jay Yoon was still struggling with the blister pain. - Jeffrey