Today we left at the same time as a delightful Japanese family, doing the Portuguese Camino by bike, with two boys – a 3 year old who rode with his father and a 5 year old who rode his own bike and who both seemed to be having the time of their life.
Much of the Camino today was through the woods.
I was excited because towards the end of the day we would be crossing over from Portugal to Spain – with just one week of the Camino remaining.
Our first glimpse of Spain across the water.
We arrived in Caminha around 2pm – happy with the thought of taking the ferry from Portugal across to Spain – but, it turned out that today there was no ferry! Undaunted, we decided to find a fisherman to take us across the water. That necessitated first some searching and then some waiting – but eventually we found our fisherman!
We were deposited somewhat unceremoniously on a Spanish beach – and walked along the coast to A Guarda where there was an albergue. (Photos – The Spanish beach where we landed, looking back at Portugal, the rocky coastline with A Guarda in the distance, the town seen from across the harbor as we entered.)
It was 9pm by the time we reached the albergue (we had set out at 7 this morning). We received an incredibly exuberant welcome from a very kindly elderly man who voluntarily took care of the hostel and who must have been there all afternoon and evening in case any pilgrims arrived. (There was only one other person there – who walked from the other direction, so wasn’t affected by the ferry closure.) Everyone went out for drinks at 10pm and then came back at 11pm to fetch me for dinner. I admired their enthusiasm and was with them in spirit – but couldn’t quite peel myself off the bed!
As always – the yellow arrows showed the way.
Fatijah's Camino Portugués 2016 