Agueda to Albergaria la Velha

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Well we haven’t done this before…we are back at Agueda, having walked to Albergaria la Velha and tomorrow we get “transported” back to la Velha and we keep walking. A quirk in the agenda which will get repeated a couple more times this Camino. Must be something to do with the Scottish company that we have booked through this time. Nonetheless it was a great day of walking with a couple of hilarious bits and a quite touching encounter.

We headed “UP” out of town – which I have to say we are getting much better at as the days are progressing – almost two weeks in and the “UPs” are getting more doable. I’m almost regretting writing that because on the horizon are a serious lot of mountains and I am positive that eventually they are going to get between us and Santiago. We cleared the town of Agueda and had walked for about two hours and saw a sign to a restaurant which was slightly off the path.

We headed into the restaurant for a coffee and even though they were setting up for the day (I doubt that they were actually open) we were invited in. Coffees and mineral water consumed we got up to pay and the young woman serving asked if we wanted our Camino passport stamped – we of course said yes as that meant we were not going to have to be searching for another place to get the stamp today. Again, this is a difference from the Camino Frances where almost every church is open and stamps “Sils” are relatively common place. After the stamps were completed I offered the money for the coffees and waters and the young woman responded that her father (the owner) was shouting us – no money required. We were a little surprised, but gratefully accepted.

The young woman explained that she had last week completed the Camino from Valencia to Santiago and although it had taken 6 days, she is sure that she and her husband could have made it in 4. We said that we were walking from Lisbon and planned to be finished in about 25 days of walking. Her father was listening to the conversation and as we were leaving, he called something out and she stopped us and asked us to wait. She went into a back room and brought a bag of local biscuits for us to take “on the way”. A gift, from her Dad. She then went on to say that they were all having a difficult time as a family as her son had just died – for a young woman, clearly her son must have been young and her father was offering us a gift for our Camino. Her Camino was obviously for very personal reasons and we were afforded a kindness from her family – and we were grateful for that. We set off again realising AGAIN this year that many people walk the Camino for many different reasons.

We were hoofing it along and realised that the signs on the road were different from those on our map. Looking at the signs on the road it was taking us straight onto a freeway and map was leading us away – always ready to get off a freeway, we chose the map. As we came around a bend having taken photos of the Horreo ( a typically Galician granary to dry out corn or cheese so that the mice don’t get the goods inside) we walked towards a bridge which interestingly had the entrance bricked over. Not to be daunted, we took off our packs and placed them over the wall, and then scaled the wall and started walking along the bridge – as we came to the top of the rise of the bridge the ‘slight’ issue became clear…. “ummm Lori – there’s a bit of the bridge missing”…ie there was a complete section fo the bridge missing…we both burst out laughing. After considering whether we could climb down and roll up leggings and pants and wade/swim cross the river, and deciding that was silly, we rescaled the wall, and headed back onto the freeway. The photo, the diversion and the laugh was worth it.

The remainder of the walk took us through more eucalyptus forests (if you close your eyes and simply breathe you could be anywhere in our Australian bush) and back through the back streets of town and into Albergaria la Velha. These back districts are interesting because there’s clearly a great deal of building going on and new districts are surrounding these towns – again, not something we saw much of in Spain last year.

So, another day done – tomorrow we continue on and we are getting closer to Porto.