Camino Day 3: The Submerged Village
On the third day the landscape became even more rustic, as the path made its way from hamlet to hamlet by way of ancient footpaths along deep forest trenches and narrow stone-walled corridors. The arrow markings were sparse, barely sufficient to reassure that you were on the right track. The rain stopped around 11 am, resuming only after I reached the albergue at 6pm. That counted as a good-weather day in Galicia.
I walked alone, as usual, but ran into an elderly Austrian gentleman I recalled from my first night´s albergue (not the snorer). This surprised me since I never saw him on the two prior days and was confident I had outpaced most of the walkers I saw early on. However, it appeared that this man started very early and walked until late, thereby making quite a bit of progress. I am therefore left wondering how many others like him have left me in the dust, just as I imagined myself to be well ahead of them. Of course the Camino is not a race, but I still can´t help the thought.
After passing 30 tiny villages and one town in 42km of walking, I apprached my albergue in Portomarín, overlooking a wide river with numerous stone structures in the riverbed. It turned out that they were the remains of the old city of Portomarín, abandoned for higher ground when a dam was built on the river. The town church was moved to its new location stone by stone.
As I walked towards the town, an elderly lady who lived in a village on the outskirts caught up with me and started a friendly conversation as we both walked towards the town center. She seemed to know every local we met along the way, and exchanged words with each one of them in Gallego, the local language, which is similar to, but quite distinct from, Spanish. She also picked up some chestnuts and offered them to me, saying they make a good meal when boiled. I politely declined, explaining that I didn´t have any cookware. In the end, I got to try boiled chestnuts anyway that night, since a guy at the albergue offered some to me. They were quite good, a bit like potatoes but more like plaintains.
I walked alone, as usual, but ran into an elderly Austrian gentleman I recalled from my first night´s albergue (not the snorer). This surprised me since I never saw him on the two prior days and was confident I had outpaced most of the walkers I saw early on. However, it appeared that this man started very early and walked until late, thereby making quite a bit of progress. I am therefore left wondering how many others like him have left me in the dust, just as I imagined myself to be well ahead of them. Of course the Camino is not a race, but I still can´t help the thought.
After passing 30 tiny villages and one town in 42km of walking, I apprached my albergue in Portomarín, overlooking a wide river with numerous stone structures in the riverbed. It turned out that they were the remains of the old city of Portomarín, abandoned for higher ground when a dam was built on the river. The town church was moved to its new location stone by stone.
As I walked towards the town, an elderly lady who lived in a village on the outskirts caught up with me and started a friendly conversation as we both walked towards the town center. She seemed to know every local we met along the way, and exchanged words with each one of them in Gallego, the local language, which is similar to, but quite distinct from, Spanish. She also picked up some chestnuts and offered them to me, saying they make a good meal when boiled. I politely declined, explaining that I didn´t have any cookware. In the end, I got to try boiled chestnuts anyway that night, since a guy at the albergue offered some to me. They were quite good, a bit like potatoes but more like plaintains.
posted by Dmitri Evseev at 5:50 PM
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