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Published: September 2nd 2019
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I started today hoping everything would be a better/easier day. Well, it was in some ways. I saw and spoke with a good many other pilgrims from places like Norway, Germany, and Canada. I wasn’t getting as tired, sore or uncomfortable as before. Also, I’d learned my lesson about stopping at available cafes, instead of figuring there’d be another just a bit further… there usually wasn’t! Finally, I’d made reservations at my next stop, Casa da Carolina. What I hadn’t planned on was the HILLS! Soon after I left the coast, the trail started climbing and climbing. After the first hill, there was a nice trail through the woods, followed by a cute little creek crossing over concrete, followed by the never ending hill from Hell! When it wasn’t ridiculously long and steep, it was just long and steep. After a couple of hours of this, I finally started down, which wasn’t much better, since several stretches were quite rocky.
The trail finally leveled out as I approached the large town of Viana do Castelo, my final destination for the day, or so I thought. I’d been sure that when I reached town I’d see a sign for my hostel,
but I’d walked quite a ways with no signs at all, so I stopped at a café to rest and check. The nice lady at the café didn’t know where it was but got her phone out and looked it up. Apparently I’d passed it 4.7 kilometers earlier! Since I was getting quite tired by this point, I asked if she could call a taxi for me. I figured it wasn’t cheating since I’d already walked that part. The lady also wrote down the address for me so the driver would know. I had no idea how much it would cost and had to trust the guy. Along the way I was wondering… would it cost 10, 20, or may even 50 euros? At this point I didn’t really care much. The taxi dropped me off at the front door to the hostel and showed me the bill for … 8.50 euros! Relieved, I gave him a 10 euro note and told him to keep the change.
Albergue Casa da Carolina is a very nice hostel. Modern, clean, and pretty fancy for only 15 euros. I unpacked my stuff, soaked my feet in there little pool, and walked down
the street to the O Nossa Café to have a coffee and buy a couple of cokes for later. When I got back to the hostel, I washed my clothes, by hand, then started on this blog before dinner. I wandered up and down the street for over an hour trying to find a place for dinner, and finally ended up going back to the O Nossa Café and got lucky… sort of. They had hamburgers, so I ordered one, but had to wait over 30 minutes because they were so busy with customers watching a soccer game on TV. The hamburger was delicious though. After dinner I walked back up to the hostel to finish this and get some much needed sleep.
Tomorrow I may take a taxi back down to Viana do Castelo where I’d stopped walking. My goal for tomorrow is to reach Caminha where I can take a ferry the next day back to the Central route where I hope lodging and support will be better. I’m really looking forward to entering Spain where support for pilgrims should be much better.
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