We arrived in Tomar today after a 20km hike. We were up early (5:00am) and left around 6:05am after a pilgrim (Continental) breakfast. We needed to leave early in order to beat the oppressive 93+ degree heat of the afternoon.
It was a mixed bag walk today from Ataiala to Tomar. We started with a hilly hike through a eucalyptus forest and finished on roads with a little bit of dirt trail between. While in the eucalyptus forest a hiking pole presented itself to me. We a minor length adjustment * Crack! I had a hiking stick.
We were happy to get to Tomar at 12:30pm before the REALLY hot part of the day began. We were still spent from the heat.
We went through our afternoon routine of check-in at the Albergue (Tonight is the 2300 Thomar Hostel), followed by a shower, and hand-washing our clothes from today's hike. The laundry is hung out to dry... which happens fast in this heat! Next comes journal writing before dinner, which begins between 7 and 8pm in Portugal.
The exception to our routine today was to go to a pharmacy for blister "Second Skin" supplies and a market for trail snacks as tomorrow we may have some challenges in finding food and we want to pound out as many of the uphill 33 kilometers in the morning hours as possible.
The last three days have been arduous, and tomorrow will be the last long, tough day without services for a while (we hope).
Below are some photo odds and ends from our trip to date. We have run into some of the same pilgrims a few times so far... a couple from Canada (Stephen and Marquet), Song from Korea, and his sister-in-law Sang Hee Choi (A writer from Korea). We have also bumped into an Israeli couple and another older couple from Korea.
It is funny how some folks approach their hike. Sang Hee walks at a slower pace and takes breaks to write and explore, the Canadians are very easy-going about it and do not have a set end-date in mind for their Camino. They may take some side trips along the way. Song seems to sleep-in, get distracted, and end-user staggering into the hostel in the worst heat of the afternoon.
The older Korean couple are approaching the Camino like a war objective. They were quite distressed to see us preparing to leave from the hostel today before them. The man literally ran around trying to expedite getting out the door. It was totally unacceptable to them that these 3 Americans would be ahead of them. Each day they are one of the first to reach accomodations for the night. We had a good half hour jump on them, but stopped at a cafe 9km down The Way for a break and a coffee. They showed-up 10 minutes later at the cafe having made up time, and although there was no other service for a while, only bought a quick drink and then quickly took off ahead of us.... no doubt relieved to once again be 'in the lead.'
We are hiking consistently and with a goal each day. Our only priorities are to beat the heat each day if we can, and to maintain a 20km average over the trip in order to finish in time for our scheduled departure from Portugal.
Another interesting oddity is that whenever we stop for a break, or get off route for a meal or such, we seem to get accosted by friendly locals offering help as to where to get back on the Camino. "Camino!, Camino!," they will shout and point in the appropriate direction. "Yes, we know," we respond, "we are just stopping for a drink," and we continue in our planned direction. As they do not understand English, they grow more adament... "No, No! Camino!!, Camino!!," they insist as they point in the relevant direction. Generally they finally give up and shake their heads as we continue in the "wrong" direction.
2 comments:
Is it 3 cats?
Where do you see them?
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