Camino Portugues Day 3
Rates to Tamel
Starting km: 48.4
Finishing km: 74.4
Distance walked: 26.0
We had an alarm set for 07:15. Some people were up and moving around (and even out the door) by 06:15, but no problem, they were quiet and considerate. Then at 06:40, when four people were still laying in bed, an older German lady who had gone out to the bathroom burst back into the room and turned on the lights. When some of us sat up looking less than entirely pleased she said, in a concerned sounding tone, “you don't want the lights on? It's seven o'clock!” As though anyone still in bed must have been unwell or morally unsound or perhaps both.
Sarah and I, lazy reprobates that we are, made a nice breakfast and were on the road by 07:45. The day was almost all on quiet country and/or village roads. A few bits went through gorgeous smelling eucalyptus plantations. It was a grey morning, but pleasantly cool and actually very nice for walking.
About 18km in, the largest settlement we'd seen since Porto, the lovely small city of Barcelos. Clearly the Camino is a big part of its economy, as there were three official pilgrims’ hostels there, plus loads of other hotels, restaurants and shops advertising themselves to Camino walkers. However being Sunday, there wasn't a heck of a lot actually open.
We stopped in at one place that was, a supermarket on the far side of town. As we left it started raining in earnest, but there was little enough left that we didn't really mind, only about 9km to go. Got to the town of Tamel (interesting that it shares a name with the big tourist district in Nepal). At 13:15 the hostel hadn't even opened yet, so we popped into the only other business in the village, a restaurant, and sat with eight or ten other pilgrims and had a couple of exceptionally cheap (€0.80) drinks.
The hostel is a modern building, under ten years old. The guy who checked in after us was guest number forty thousand. It’s got quite a bit of both mortared rough stone and floor to ceiling glass in its construction. We're sitting in the comfy lounge drinking coffee, eating cheese toasties, strawberries and chocolate as I write. It's always much nicer doing this kind of thing when you can look at the wretched weather as you do it (and greet the other drowned-cat looking walkers, many of whom we spent the afternoon and evening with yesterday) as they arrive.
Today's wine:
Campelo Branco (white) Vinho Verde. Local stuff, DOC Barcelos!
Bonus wine:
Very yummy fizzy stuff on tap at the restaurant where we waited for the hostel to open for the afternoon.
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