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The best way to avoid the humidity! (Good to read you are inside at night. Yes, putting up with what comes is part of any camino. And...)Having an earlier start this morning, looks like.
Ferry from Caminha to A Guarda
Ferryboat Santa Rita de Cássia
Departs from Caminha at 09:00 every half hour until 18:00 (Portuguese time).
Returns from A Guarda at 10:30 every half hour until 19:30 (Spanish time).
BUT it does not run at low tide.
AND it does not run on Mondays.
The Portuguese weekly ferry schedule is updated here:
https://www.cm-caminha.pt/pages/1079
Near bottom of page, click on: the Horário PDF for the week you want.
The Spanish weekly ferry schedule is updated here:
https://www.turismoaguarda.es/en/horarios-ferry/
Portugal is one hour behind Spain. So the ferry from Caminha (Portugal) to A Guarda will be one hour earlier than that shown on the A Guarda (Spain) timetable.
There is also a guy called Mario, in Caminha, who has a boat and can take you across. His phone number is +351 963 416 259.
Here is a link to the Caminha tide chart; Low tide today is 17.36:Mondays are a problem but the water taxi (a large row boat with a motor that seats 6) does run on demand. The owner also hangs out at the coffee shop near the dock. I think it was 5E for the trip.
On the way out of Santiago, you mean? Depending on your timing heading home, you might catch the tail end of the September wave that will have started from SJPP a month ago.hmmmm, I don't *think* I'll take the Invierno, but I'll consider those options properly when I'm there.
Wonderful.I passed a major milestone yesterday, as I reached the westernmost point of this Camino.
Excellent! I hope you manage enough sleep before the coffee hounds wake up and start rattling around.I got into La Cala at Oia, though after a cancellation, I ended up getting a bed there.
JabbaPappa,Anyway, got another Xunta Albergue "private" bedroom, so all good.
I do wish that people would just stop the silly Reservagrino bed race stuff, but sigh, they have been at it since the early 1990s, so that's likely a forlorn hope.
Saw them walking in, and intuitively felt it would be a good place, but honestly, it's overly hearty meals that created the trouble in the past few days to start with.JabbaPappa,
Glad to read that you have a good place to rest in Melide. If tou want a good hearty meal try
https://www.caminodesantiago.me/com...e-one-photo-at-a-time-10-0.76705/post-1072359
JabbapapaDays 278, 279 - - Casanova ; Palas de Rei
I am still doing these shorter days, though the first of these two was more or less a 10K.
Much up and down, though the waves of 100K peregrinos continue to lessen as the tide starts to fall off.
The little country lanes and dirt tracks, and occasional tarmac stretches, through fields have made way to a more rolling landscape of dirt, dust, and mud trails through woodland, some old Celtic paths dug deep into the earth from thousands of years of trudging along them.
I am conscious sometimes of how I must appear in the midst of these ancient pathways, as I am, trudging in black, leaning on my Ashen pilgrim staff, black cape billowing behind me in the wind and rain.
But then reality comes in, and I realise that for many in this 100K crowd, I am just one more part of the tourist attraction.
I am reminded of Chateaubriand's self-deprecatory narrative of his Romantic Atlantic crossing ; but then also of his more humbled description of the genuine awe that he felt upon his encounter with the Niagara Falls.
There is this same encounter between the sublime and the ludicrous in this manner of my current Camino.
Tourigrinos non-stop ; but then one comes across a Belgian lady doing her Camino in her all-terrain wheeled zimmer frame, then five minutes later a gentleman being pushed in his wheelchair, and then one remembers that all this tourist infrastructure has its own good purposes beyond our petty prejudice.
Think my post viral syndrome has finally broken.
The Autumn continues to dig in apace, so that I have finally dug my black woollen jumper from out of the bottom of the backpack I had been dragging it in, these many thousand Ks.
Don't need it walking, yet, but when I stop in the afternoon, it's good for keeping warm after I stop moving.
JabbaPapa,Days 283 and 284 - - Ferreiros ; Barbadelo
I ended up getting very drunk indeed in Portomarín, but it did get rid of the pain, which was horrendous. It's clearly a lot easier to handle that sort of procedure alone and at home than in an Albergue shared with other people, but on the Camino you take the good with the bad.
There was some lingering knee pain in the morning that some beers were needed for, but eventually I made my way out.
In my head I was keen on getting over the river on the old bridge, but my knees were telling me to take the new.
But when I actually reached the start of the bridge, it seemed to me that the elevation difference wasn't that bad, so I hobbled down those steps, and crossed the old bridge, for a second time in two Caminos, Hooray !!
That whole day was very slow though, and I only got into Ferreiros in the late afternoon. No disabled dorm at the Xunta Albergue there, but it's all on the ground floor anyway, and was far from full, so all good.
There were very few pilgrims on the road that day, more yesterday though.
It did strike me that with not so many pilgrims, the Francès through Galicia is actually rather quite similar to certain parts of the Arles Way. The crowds do seem to distract from the Camino itself.
I seem somehow to have dodged the worst of the downpours of rain these past days, being just indoors upon the worst of them, but the showers do come and go.
Yesterday was a bit faster over a slightly shorter distance, but I was glad to stop here rather than carry on to Sarria.
The previous day I had eaten very little, some morning tostada and a gift of some Korean pot noodles, so it was good to get in at about lunchtime, though the place to get food here in late October is half a K further along the Camino towards Sarria. Some good lentils and steak with cream and mushroom sauce, tinto, downpour during lunch, and it turned out to be a lot easier after the food to walk back up to the Albergue than it had been to walk down there.
I am not alone in the Albergue, but I think the young blonde peregrina had the upstairs dorm all to herself. (But no, she now tells me that they were four.)
I don't know if the "three stages" thing works on the Camino homewards, but I am definitely going through a physical stage, but from the accumulated exhaustion of close to five months on the Camino this year. There's some muscular stress in my thighs, and some pain from the early 2019 Camino wound in the right one is flaring up again.
But the hardest thing about the return Way is the loneliness really, which seems to be even more radical than being completely alone on a tertiary Camino route that nobody else takes.
The first return pilgrim I ever really talked to, on my 1994, talked of it with me after I actually met him a second time during my hitch-hiked return, when I actually walked with him for a few K to get through Burgos, but it's one thing to know about it, another to experience what it actually is.
On my previous partial return Camino to Ponferrada I had a walking companion, plus it was much shorter, so it was very different.
Jabbapapa,Days 289 and 290 - - O Cebreiro ; Villafranca del Bierzo (!!)
Well, that's two nights of sleeping very poorly, including insomnia 'til about 4AM last night.
The walk to O Cebreiro was long, easy, and beautiful, and mostly on the tarmac, as I knew from having done it before, that it's the better option in that direction, but not if walking towards Santiago.
I made a mistake during the day though, of not ensuring a good food to booze ratio.
However, a German former pilgrim who is is accompanying his girlfriend, she is walking the Camino, in his camper van offered me a lift over the final K or so.
The Xunta Albergue has eliminated the disabled dorm, and there are just two reserved beds in the normal dorm, so there I slept, but having had too much to drink, and so poorly. Especially, I awoke poorly.
So I hung about for a bit to see when I could get started, but then my German friend turned up, he had I think been looking for me, and he was coming down to Villafranca and offered to take me, which I accepted.
I managed to eat something, and realised that I was in no condition to deal with the craziness of the Ave Fénix Albergue, much as I like the place, and the Municipal turned out to be closed, so that I just went to the first place I found, El Castillo, which is great.
Just that I had that annoying insomnia.
Apart from that, hmmmmm, coincidence or sign I don't know, but walking in to O Cebreiro there was a rainbow, and looking for somewhere to sleep here, there was a double rainbow.
What could it mean, that I could avoid some of the more difficult bits of the Camino by similar means or something ?
I will have to consider these matters.
Really starting to look forward to the time change on Sunday, the hours at which we're supposed to wake up and get out of the Albergues are starting to be ridiculous.
Jabbapapa,hmmmmm, this is as far as I have walked previously in "reverse", on my 2005, so it's "new" territory from here. It does feel good to have done so again though. Hanging about before starting, it's just a short day to the foot of the mountain.
Molinaseca. And thanks !!Jabbapapa,
For your first day into "new" territory are you planning to stop in Molinaseca or go further? Whichever it may be take care and Buen camino!
Jabbapapa,hmmmmm, this is as far as I have walked previously in "reverse", on my 2005, so it's "new" territory from here. It does feel good to have done so again though. Hanging about before starting, it's just a short day to the foot of the mountain.
In Molinaseca do look for this handsome sculpture which VNwandering noted two years ago.Molinaseca. And thanks !!
Jabbapapa,Day 300 - - Hooray !! - - Santibáñez de Valdeiglesias
It took me such a long time to feel ready to get moving that I just decided to get my lunch at San Justin, which was OK.
I took the tarmac, and then the trail or old tarmac that runs parallel to it, then took a break at the petrol station bar.
Night fell as I was there, and I walked the rest of the way and into the village beneath the full moon, which was beautiful, but I got in too late to sleep indoors, mainly because the parish Albergue appears to be closed.
It got down to 2°C last night I think, and it's quite damp, but I got by, though the second half of the night was better than the first.
Short day today anyway, just waiting for the meds to kick in properly, though probably no bar until the next pueblo.
Buen camino, @JabbaPapa - it's a straight shot to Villadangos and beyond.So today I will be going further than the 3K+, and whilst I am unsure of any Albergue open at about the halfway point towards León, sleeping out will be OK tonight if necessary. Well, if the various supply points I can see along the way on my mapy.cz don't slow me down too much !!
Jabbapapa,Day 306 - - Puente Villarente
So it looks like I shall not be without brisk fresh air tonight !!
The Albergue in Arcahueja has been given over to some Ukrainians, the two here are closed, I do not have it in me to walk to Mansilla, and whilst it's one thing to be forced to bus it into León for medical reasons, I will not bus it for pure matters of personal convenience.
It was great hiking weather today, sunny and fairly warm, and the pilgrim numbers were up too.
I took three wrong turns heading out, though only the third was a bad one that cost me some time.
I found out why the Municipal in Mansilla de las Mulas is closed ; it's for renovations, as it seems over the years to have become fairly insalubrious.
Well, it was warmer today than when I slept out two nights ago, so hopefully it won't freeze. But if it does, hey ho ...
This new trick of Albergues that used to be open all year round now closing in winter, and furthermore in the Holy Year, is getting tiresome.
And I've lost count of the number of places where pilgrims are second-class citizens in the pilgrim hostels on this Camino. Still, perhaps my sleeping out in the cold can help "save the planet" or something.
When it's this cold at night, sleeping in vegetation and/or next to running water is not the best idea, particularly as my inflatable mattress seems to have a leak and is basically now just a sleeping mat.Jabbapapa,
If you are looking for a nook for sleeping in Puente Villarente go down towards the river. I remember seeing many possible ad hoc nooks along there in the vegetation. Good luck as always.
Well, this is better.
I have three walls and a roof, it's definitely not as cold as two nights ago, I have a bellyfull of ham and cheese, and even WiFi. Not bad for a November outsider.
Sleeping bag is still a bit damp from two nights ago, but my body heat will fix that.
Just hope the night doesn't go freezing later !!
Good night, pilgrims.
Ah, yeah, that makes total sense. It was pretty atmospheric 7 years ago and can't have improved with use.I found out why the Municipal in Mansilla de las Mulas is closed ; it's for renovations, as it seems over the years to have become fairly insalubrious.
Yay!!Looks like Mansilla today, Reliegos tomorrow, then El Burgo Ranero the day after. All have Albergues open.
There's Reliegos before then. Don't worry, I'll get enough stock.JabbaPappa,
Not many "watering holes" of any type in the next stretch to El Burgo Ranero. Be prepared. Buen camino.
Yes. It is so beautiful.finally back into the parts of the Meseta that I just love, with the mountains to the north of the Francès peeking over the horizon,
We were hospis in Burgo this April. Nice little village. The old couple running the shop were going to retire. Either they are still there or someone else has taken it over. There is an excellent cafe run by Maria on the Camino route on the main street. The guy lighting the fire will be Ovidio, local council handyman but the village seems be generally run by a remarkable woman called Josi with multi-colored hair and a penchant for burning around the neighbourhood on a quad bike. Fond memories we have of El Burgo.Day 309 - - El Burgo Ranero
The Hospitalero and shop guy in Reliegos had told me he would be open in the morning, but in fact they were off for covid jabs, so the shop wasn't. But I still had a drop of beer left, and he gave me a small can of San Miguel he had in the Albergue, and that was just enough - - but no coffee !!
So I set out into the rain, but especially the wind - - which was very strong, occasionally as strong as the Mistral on the times when it reaches the French Riviera. Not the full blast Mistral in the Rhône valley, but pretty strong regardless.
So, nasty weather on that pretty long stretch.
It did improve when the rain stopped, and there was even a stretch of sunshine, with a rainbow and so on. And of course I was glad of the one rest spot in a copse of trees that was properly protected from the weather.
But I was certainly glad to get into town !!
Apart from the little shop opposite the Albergue, though, and the pharmacy, everything in the Burgo is closed down, and whilst the Albergue is open, it is without Hospitaleros.
Being me, I did of course find out where there's a bar anyway, so at least this morning I will get my coffee and beer, but I just used the little shop and the kitchen for my dinner, though my discovery was useful to another pilgrim who was able to get himself a proper meal over there.
The petrol station not far outside town has a hotel-bar-restaurant for the lorry/truck drivers, and it's not far from my way out, so there's my breakfast place. And the little shop opens at 8:30, so today it's all good, and it's a short one too.
And it's definitely time for a more comfortable Albergue and a pilgrim menu !!
Good people in the Albergue last night, and the bad weather we had all walked through, plus the lack of facilities nearby in the village, gave us some more companionship than usual.
There is a fellow in town taking basic care of the Albergue in the absence of Hospitaleros, and he came in to replenish the stock of paper sheets and light the wood stove, which was great.
Tinto again yesterday evening, with a chick peas, ham, and cheese meal, then on its own, then I burrowed down into my three blankets, and there you go.
I think the truck stop is indeed 24/7. It has a hotel too. Once I figured out the meaning of 'El Burgo Ranero' (roughly. 'froggy town') I couldn't stop the sound of 'Funky Town' going round inside my head. The sunsets over the laguna were spectacular.I don't know if the bar-restaurant at the gasolinera has a weekly closing day or not, though it's not unlikely, but I would guess that the shop there must be open 7/7.
Tienda is open soon, stock up with beer, then off to the gasolinera for breakfast.
Yeah, I love frogtown.
I did want to get that post out last night, though I was falling asleep.
I bet it's a wee bit cooler than when you passed by some months ago!
Day 312 - - Moratinos
Start of Day 313 too.
The food that I ate in Sahagún has given me a massive and horrid painful inflammatory attack, but even so, I had been underestimating how much I am in need of a rest day.
I have come down to the Albergue at the start of the pueblo for some very early beers to get the pain down, and that's working Hooray !! and the weather is glorious, but no matter where I would have been, in this condition it's stay put and wait until it's possible to carry on. Which is going to be tomorrow.
I hope.
We were invited for drinks in one of the bodegas here, a trip into the Hobbit Hole memory lane for me of the 1993 Camino, I love this place so much.
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