Alarm clock!
Today is a hard day; a lot of km to walk, it will be 7,5 hours for sure. Around five in the morning an alarm clock wakes up the whole room, but I sleep further until a man says: “Good morning, I found a bedbug, on my bunkbed, so please check your belongings”. Well, what is a terrible message. I can’t sleep anymore with all the noise and this bedbug news, so I get up and leave quickly.
Proud: At 7:00 I leave the albergue after a heavy rain shower. It starts good. The big blister I have is okay, I walk without a lot of pain. The weather is good. It is mostly dry with small showers in between. Until one o clock when the heavy rain starts, it is really terrible. Luckily I am close to the only restaurant on the route, so I go there and order a lunch. I will stay here until it is dry. Because it is still 12 km to Ponte da Lima, at least a 3 hours walk ahead of me.
Rain and Storm in Portugal
After my caminho Litoral last year in October, I rather not walk in heavy rain again. You have to experience the rain in Portugal to understand the meaning of heavy rain. Really, a lot of people don’t know, but it is worse than in The Netherlands, it could rain here non-stop for three months. I am here already three winters, and it was like this. Luckily I have a very good and beautiful rain coat from The Netherlands, it is made for the bicycle. I bought it when I came to Portugal because I knew I needed a good rain coat. Again pilgrims recognize me because of it and I got a lot of compliments. Yes really I bought something fancy for once. And if you believe it or not, I was not totally wet like the others!
Okay, I admit. It didn’t stop pouring and two Spanish men asked for a taxi in the cafe so I could ride with them. I skipped the last 10 km. After, they went to their place and I still walked 2 km in the rain to the albergue I had in mind. Unfortunately I find out that it isn’t a real albergue, they only have private rooms for two people. It may sound strange but I don’t like to stay in a private room with one person I don’t know, I’d rather stay in the public albergue, with lots of people where people snore and make noise, and I do know some of them. So I walk further and walk through the beautiful city of Ponte de Lima in the pouring rain. I guess I walked 25 km today.
