Back to Porto

Needed to leave the warmth of Ideas Peregrinas Albergue for the warmth of the Cafe attached below and a large mug of Tilla tea, oat biscuit and chestnut cake. Three substances I know provoke sleepiness. I was a bit restless even in the comfortable bottom bunk in room 204. Hops also do that don't they. A hop pillow ... My only concern is whether my boots will have dried by the morning. The rain was running rivers everywhere. Newspaper... In the 21st century these are less common than the ubiquity they were prior to the digital age? Annoyed with the weather. Tui is a nice city, perched on the top of a hill, overlooking the Minho river...but I didn't make it all the way on foot! I feel a bit of 'guilt' because I caught a train. But I am not a fool. I recall the downpour which kept me in Óbidos in 2021 - around about the same time of year too. The gentleman behind the counter in the Eco-Café suggests tomorrow will same. Perhaps I stay put, chill out and then catch the bus or train back to Porto on Saturday morning? I need to track down newspaper for the boots! They're not wet on the inside - just a lot wet on the leather outers. I was going to re-wax them at the hotel but I got distracted by Show Jumping on the television in the bar! Show jumping...

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Soundly asleep until some 'reveller' opened the door to room 204, after 5 am, and in Spanish shouted 'great booze up' or the equivalent! I didn't say irse which would have been an excellent command to the drunken interloper? And would've perhaps said vamos instead - which would be the last thing needed in that situation. All I could say was el Camino and shush... And I told the management: he was the late pilgrim they were waiting for who didn't turn up! And yes he is hungover: only a drunken pilgrim is a good pilgrim? Free coffee and cake as I head south while the weather isn't torrential? Tui was a bit noisy on the night prior to the immaculate conception!

Back to Portugal, across the frontier bridge into Valença through the portal which was extra dangerous on Thursday, with the water cascading everywhere over those polished cobbles, but is far calmer now...

Porto and then UK Sunday... Two nights in Tui during the immaculate conception would be too much for my once more weary head? Which way to go? Just follow the blue arrows and you'll be in Fatima in zero time, lol? But also there is the 9:26am to Porto São Bento (11.35€). Two nights in Porto? Let's see...

For the second day running I filled my flask at the Fuente del Oro

and then coming back to the station in Valença, below the citadel

It is one of my el Camino rituals. Fill the flask, drink from the flask at the next fuente and replenish from the next fuente...

The sun is shining on the Minho as the train is comong back west through Caminha. Yesterday I couldn't see the river, nevermind Spain on the opposite bank, and now we're about to turn south alongside the Atlantic Ocean - which looks very dangerous this morning with it's wildcat fury.

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I don't like going round in circles, but I often do. Back at the Peregrinos Albergue in Porto because I caught the train back to here. After a day of wondering around the tourist side of 'it' which is a trap for me ... Down on the southern bank, where all the port caves are located I went for a glass of overpriced Kopke white port(7.50€) and I don't know what drew me there as I don't like sweet wine at all. Back on Saturday I was on the north bank heading towards Santiago, but I fell foul then too eating that very expensive, but gorgeous, lunch in the market. It's because I am supposed to be a 'tourist' and I can't operate properly in that concept: it's always been far too complex for me. It's a glue of a tourist trap city which I get stuck to.

Leaving Kopke, turning right, I saw a traditional lavandeira on Rua da Barroca but some homeless person had decided to defecate all over the water outlet! On the other side the large Font in Plaça de Ribeira was bone dry: perhaps it was a warning not to drink any free flowing water here in Porto? What a simply dreadful thing to do... The 21st century. It's a choice. All of life our free will to decide should I stay or should I go?

Would I leave home if there wasn't the convenience of a jet plane to take me a fraction of the curvature of the planet away from the point on the sofa at my mum's where Lola is always content to wait for me(or on the window sill when the sun is shining). I've got to learn something from the Camino calm and also from animals behaviour if I am to ever stop going around in circles and giving myself such pain?

I am looking for the profound in external things, when I absolutely know that there is nothing external which can do this. Some things help a subtle shift towards something truly life changing, but I often fail to let them in. Just in the past few days I was so in 'the moment'... feeling freer by being in the illusion of space away from humanity and its dangerous persuasions: even if it was in a eucalyptus plantation ...

In several places I've seen how people have been altered by the Camino experience: the German girl at the house prior to Astorga who decided it was so perfect she stayed and welcomed pilgrims forever after.

I saw her when I was in that perfect zone then I walked down into Astorga, the Irish pub and the busy kitchen Albergue where I couldn't get comfortable at all. Because I was looking for those peak experiences which inhabit The Way, commonly, but are unlooked for. So two nights at the Albergue de Peregrinos Porto during the immaculate conception weekend would be a better thing?

Saturday morning. Just gone six and I was awoken by someone using the women's toilet at 5, as there is the ever present fan noise which subtracts from deep sleep: how many peregrinos are there here this morning... Not so many pairs of shoes.

No coffee to be found in the kitchen: but plenty of tea bags. But black tea on an empty stomach is a bad thing. It tends to make me dry retch because it has too many tannins in it. Luckily I didn't eat all the Broa in my hazy state yesterday so that's in my gut first.

The cat who surprised me the last time didn't surprise me this time, so I have learned something on this trip? I am in the front room: Sala de Convivio and one of the cats wants access, but I don't know if it is allowed... It's got a kind of broken meow... I think it wants to get on my lap or be fed or be let out?

Lola changed me. I never thought I could get so close to a dog. Whenever I see another dog I give them the love I usually give to Lola, but they're not exactly Lola? She's my girl...