Making Progress

My hotel was located in a residential area last night, so I was a little surprised when the sound of roosters woke me just a few minutes before my alarm was set to go off. There were several. It was almost as if they were having a competition.

At breakfast, I ran into Tom and Carol. I had met them the night before at my hotel, and did not expect to see them again because they were traveling a shorter distance. They were a little surprised to see me at breakfast because I had told them I would be going another seven miles yesterday. They are from Utah and both retired from the IRS. Before traveling this Portuguese Camino, they had done the Italian route from Assisi to Rome. Listening to them has definitely piqued my interest in making that my next Camino. Of further interest was that Tom lived in Largo, a city in my county in Florida, back in the 1960s. I'm sure he would not recognize the place if he were to return now.

With breakfast done and my bag packed and ready for pickup, I started out to retrace my steps from the day before. There was a heavy fog over the city, and as I descended toward the bridge over the river, I saw two taxis waiting to pick up fares. I was very tempted to grab one of them to take me back up to Alvorge, where I had finished the day before. I didn't though, because it was my error and I felt like I needed to do the penalty lap.

My hope was that having done the hills and distance the day before, it would go by more quickly today. Like the kind of thing that happens when you ride Space Mountain roller coaster over and over again: the twists and turns aren't quite as impactful, and there are fewer surprises. It did not turn out that way. Climbing the hills took much longer than the short duration of a lap on the coaster at Disney. The good news was that it remained overcast so the temperatures were very moderate.

I returned to the cafe where I had gotten my ride yesterday and saw the same woman behind the bar. She smiled and acknowledged that I was back again. This time it was only for a cafe con leche – my completion beer was hours away.

I pressed on and descended into the next valley. The fog hung very low. My guess was that it was no more than 100 or 200 feet above the ground and visibility was about one quarter mile.  Gauging the distance was easy. I would pick a point in the distance where I could identify a tree and then check the distance on my GPS when I got there.

I haven't flown since March of 2020 and really haven't missed it. But today, looking at the low ceilings and poor visibility, it did make me miss the days when we used to hand-fly instrument approaches. The guidance would take you down to a point where you had to visually acquire the runway in order to make the landing. It was always interesting to get close to approach minimums and start to see the glow of the strobing approach lights and then break out under the ceiling. There might only be five seconds in which to acquire the runway and transition from the instruments to visual inputs to make the landings. If you couldn't pick up the runway, you had to do a go-around. There was an art to flying that way. Subsequently, as aircraft changed, so did procedures. Instead of hand flying the approach, you were encouraged to use the autopilot. Later, you were required to use the autopilot.

I vividly remember one day when it was still an option to hand fly instead of using the autopilot. I briefed the approach and told the co-pilot I would be hand flying it. He looked at me as if I was crazy. He told me nobody did that anymore. This might have been the first indication that I had become a dinosaur in the cockpit.

As it approached 1:00 p.m. on the trail, you could see the sun begin to sneak through and some blue sky above hills in the distance. This was when I entered the town of Rabacal. I passed a school and saw three children playing in a dirt activity yard, two girls and one boy. I don't know if that was just one class or the total enrollment for the school.

I thought I might grab my next coffee in town, but there was nothing open. Back on the road, as I put that village behind me I saw an amusing sign. I can only imagine that it gets photographed as often as any other tourist landmark on the Camino.

The trail crossed through a couple of small villages. One had more dogs than people. Several times as you enter a town, dogs are out to greet you and they walk along for several yards as an escort.

After seeing previous rest spots along the trail, I think I understand why they might be limited in number. Too many walkers lighten their loads at these spots by leaving all types of trash behind. That’s why it was an even greater surprise to come upon a rest area built specifically for Camino de Santiago and Fatima travelers. There was fruit and cookies, and some drinks available by donation. The site even had its own stamp.

While the trail didn't crest the hilltop, there was a sweeping climb to the left. It descended along the river bed, crossed over, and climbed up the other side of a deep grade. I had arrived in Condeixa-a-Nova, situated at the top of the rise with the Roman ruins.

The facility was closed to tourists as I passed by. There were workers inside cleaning some of the tile floors and doing other maintenance work. The building was fairly well preserved and on par with much of what can be seen in Rome.

All that remained was to walk another 20 minutes or so across town to get to my hotel. I passed through the city center, which was surrounded by several cafes occupied by many people having coffee or beer. I stopped in at one and secured my end-of-day beer. I've learned how to say "a medium beer, unopened please," in Portuguese. As soon as my shoes come off, I open the beer. It's a satisfying ritual in two directions almost simultaneously.

Tomorrow is a fairly easy day. I think it's less than 15 miles. But, my days have been full of surprises.