Day 2 - Where the fcuk is Ponte Ferreira?

 

Lugo is a lovely walled town but I was appreciating it less this morning than last night. I had taken a while to get to sleep last night, in part because of the man taking a long shower in an apartment above us, so it sounded like it was pouring with rain outside, and partly because the wind was whipping through the shutters and making a terrible racket...

Sonia had drifted off straight away but it seemed the pseudo rainfall had woken her up... so sleep for both of us was a little broken. 

We got up pretty early, it was still dark, had a quick shower and then packed up our kit. There was just about room for all the food we had bought and I was pretty pleased with how neatly I had squared everything away. My pack though not light was a decent weight and felt balanced when on my back. Something had gone a little awry with Sonia's packing though and her rucksack sat at a jaunty angle on her back. Happy enough though, so we set out ready for our first few steps on the Camino.

As soon as I had a foot through the hotel door, I instantly regretted the shorts option. It was bloody cold, with a biting wind. Fortunately I had put on my rain jacket which worked as a good windbreaker so my body was warm enough. The same could not be said for my legs and hands.

Sonia was in a similar position and we strode on at a furious pace to try and warm up. There were stops of course... mainly for photos. Our first Camino marker, where we put our shells and our Camino passports to mark the start of our route.

The shells were provided thoughtfully by my mum. It seems it is a tradition for pilgrims to carry them, possibly to use as water scoops along the way back in the olden days. Now, for the modern pilgrims, it is a symbol of the journey they are undertaking... the route being marked with shells along the way. 

We also stopped to grab a coffee and some breakfast... where we fufilled one of our promises to ourselves... churros every day if possible. We were setting our own camino traditions and this was one of our better ideas. 

The other idea that had occured to us (or me, I will own this one) was to touch every waymarker along our route. Now this decision was made in complete ignorance of the number of waymarkers we would encounter over the next 4 days, but I thought it would be a nice thing to do.... little did I know that it would probably entail an extra mile of steps.. but ignorance is bliss right.

After breakfast we set off downhill from Lugo. I was a little disappointed to find the trail so brilliantly marked as it put my garmin gps in the redundant box... I still kept an eye on it, as signs go missing or are turned around by the mischievous hiking gods (almost as bad as the cycling gods). But without fail, at every intersection, a waymarker pointed the way... and of course we had to touch them all. The ones out of Lugo were generally just at the side of the road, so it was easy to reach out and touch them. I elected to tap each one twice, and once I had started that, it would have been bad luck to stop or change the pattern.

Sonia was a little less enthusiastic about the waymarkers but played along with the game and so we paced along the road out of Lugo and out into the countryside. 

We came up to an old Roman bridge (or at least the site of where it once was, guarded by a legionary. It struck me a little then, that we were walking in the footsteps of a multitude of history, the roman legions, the pilgrims, the vagabonds. We probably looked more like the latter than the former as we hotfooted it along.

The road of course started to go up... it was inevitable and wound round the peaceful hillsides, past farmland and nice houses and looking out over the most wonderful views. The air felt fresh and clean, and our legs, at the present were not complaining. Tgere were a few other walkers on the road, but not many and we leapfrogged each other. with water stops and kit adjustment. One stop came up which essentially just had a vending machine, but we had recently had a short break and a quick spready cheese roll, so almost breezed past.. only at the last minute did I spot a stamp, left out for us to stamp our camino passports, proof that we had walked the distance we said we had when it came to claiming our certificate at the cathedral in Santiago de Compostella. 

We were on a pretty quiet tarmac road and passed some more nice houses (house envy was at the forefront of our thoughts at this point), when we saw a sign for our hostel tonight... 15 or so miles away. Albergue (hostel) Ponte Ferreira. I was impressed they had bothered to advertise this far out. The sign was in front of a house which looked like it belonged to some important people back in the day. Inscribed on the front entrance way was a sign wishing pilgrims a good journey (or at least that's what I thought it said! 🤔)

So far so good. We had started to warm up and by now there were glimpses of sunshine... that and the wind had died down so the day was quickly getting better. Myself and Sonia were still chatting away and we placed our hands on each and every one of the ever present markers. The markers, however became more challenging to touch. Just a smidge further away from the road, pergaps with a nettle or two in the way. It was a sign of things to come. 

We had passed a fair few small churches, unsurprisingly, and even detoured slightly to go and look at what used to be a monastery, now a single church. As we left the main road we were greeted by the high pitched yapping of several little dogs, who did not seem pleased at all. Calm down, I said to them, and then remembered they probably spoke spanish! Tranquillo.  Que pasa?

The dogs stopped barking for a minute leading me to believe that they understood my poor spanish but then they started up again, more fervently this time, so we didn't linger long. 

I must admit, I was a little fed up of tarmac. It is hard on the feet and it frankly wasn't my vision of the Camino... but no sooner had the thought been uttered, did the path then turn to the left and head down a wooded path.

This... this was more like it. This felt like the path that all those pilgrims had trodden, an ancient track with ancient moss covered walls. It was really peaceful and suddenly I felt calm descend. The birds singing in the trees provided the backdrop to our feet crunching in time with each other. The only downside being that I couldn't get Take That's song 'Back for Good' out of my head. I had heard it on the bus to Lugo and its tempo fit with our pace.

This was probably the point where I finally warmed up a bit. Coats and sweaters came off and bare arms basked in the sun's rays. It was an idylic bit of the route. Yes it wound up and down but nothing particularly horrendous and we were still maintaining a good pace... too good in fact, as at this rate, we would miss the scenery as it became a blur of green, yellow and blue, and we would arrive at our hostel pretty early. 

we resolved to slow down a little, take our time. At some point in all this, Sonia had drawn the line under her part in our 'touch the waymarkers' game, due to one marker which required a leap of faith over a deep puddle of mud in order to place hands on it. Me however, I felt none of this compunction and though it earnt me a slightly wet foot, the game was still afoot (pun intended).

Many of the markers required me to veer across the trail or the road and clamber over a ditch to reach them, but I had started now, so I must finish. Several walkers passing us remarked on the little game I was playing but I was resolute. By the end of the day, I reckon I had walked an extra kilometer or two, in my quest to touch them all. 

We reached the end of that little bit of firest and straight out into the now blazing sunshine. One of us was sensible and applied suncream... the other not so much. No prizes for guessing which way round that was. I was a little disappointed in being back on the tarmac and a couple of relentless hills later was determined to have a proper break in a nice little spot when we next found one. 

It came in the form of a small little field, when we next headed off the tarmac into some woods. We sat, back to a tree and opened our bags of crisps, more to reduce the bulk in our bags than because we wanted food, but Sonia then remarked that the crisps were just what she had needed. We had done over 10 miles in around 4 hours without a significant break and this was a nice spot. So I pulled out my book and sonia dozed in the sunshine for a bit. 

If course the problem then becomes focused on getting back up again, and having stiffened a little, this was not the easiest of tasks. Having managed to leave my phone on the side of the road in New Zealand once, I checked the spot where we had sat very carefully before we shouldered our packs and set off once again. We were over halfway and it was just gone 12... we had time to take it a bit easy and enjoy the views. 

Possibly not taking into account the couple of steep long hills that we soon found ourselves walking up, we set off with optimism and a renewed vigour. 

The next stop came a little sooner than planned as a taverna appeared. Ice cream time and a loo stop, not sure which was most looked forward to! We didn't stop long and left a gaggle of other pilgrims sitting in the sunshine. 

Not long after that we found ourself on a lovely gravel road, not unlike those back home in Bracknell Forest or Virginia water. Pine tree scent filled the air briefly and the  disappeared as Eucalyptus trees took over, with their peeling bark. Somewhat disappointingly they didn't have that fresh eucalyptus aroma that had accompanied me throughout my ride in Ecuador, but their leaves rustled in the wind and added to the ambience of the day. The path up hurt... there were no 2 ways about it. Feet were starting to complain (though with my recently discovered shoe and sock combo, I for once had absolutely no blisters), legs had stiffened a little and Sonia fell silent. 

I didn't mind... we often walk along together, not talking, lost in our own thoughts, but when she goes really quiet, its a sign. Sonia is slower on the ups than me, but as soon as we hit the top of a hill, a flatter section, she is off like a rocket, with me almost running to keep up. 

But this was up... and to distract I made up a trail song... or at least the first verse. 

You know in American movies, with soldiers in boot camp, where they are singing to keep pace, and the song always starts with... 

I don't know but I've been told... 

Well that came into my head. 

I communicated my ridiculous thoughts to Sonia, who instead of laughing outright, began to echo my line, like the soldiers. 

We laughed... it was silly but we came up with a verse... 

and the  a plan. One verse every day of our camino, and when we got to Santiago, we would make a little video of us singing our trail song.... 

so I'm not going to reveal all now. You will have to read the blogs to the end to see the complete song. Silliness aside. It had the intended effect. A bit of a laugh, a bit of pacing our footsteps... another mile down  the road. 

Sometimes you have to play games to keep your mental game intact. We also decided that in true trail fashion, we were going to have trail names. I came up with mine fairly quickly, Sonia is still mulling hers over, so I guess that will have to wait till tomorrow to reveal. 

We were now 14 to 15 miles down teh road from Lugo and had gone at a fair pace despite our break. The terrain was not easy with a constant up or down. We crested the top of the hard hill, to be greeted by the mother of all downhills. Now If I had a choice of always up or always down... I would pick the up. Going down wreaks havoc on all the joints and smooshes toes against shoes. In the past couple of years of CraZy, I have lost many toenails, one of which still hasn't grown back, and I really didn't want to lose another. But down we must go and Sonia picked up the pace. God it hurt and kept on going down and down, at a decent gradient so there was much smooshing of toes. 

Eventually, after what seemed forever we reached the bottom. 16 miles done... we should be nearly at our destination for the day. 

Back onto tarmac and I could feel the rubbing of my backpack on my hips, the creak of my ankle protesting at the incessant poubding, and lets not mention my hip flexors! 

Sonia, I think was in a similar way, as even our trail song failed to crack a smile. 

It was roughly at this point, nearly 17 miles of feet pounding Camino, that I uttered what we were both thinking.... 

Where the FCUK is Ponte Ferreira? 

We both laughed. 

Sometimes it just takes a little thing to make the pain decrease. 

As if the Camino gods had heard us... the next sign we saw was for another Ferreira hostel... we weren't far. 

Of course, as my many travels have taught me, even thinking a thought like that will cause the trail/cycling gods to rub their hands in glee. Sometimes if you listen carefully ebough, you hear their laughter echoing on the breeze. 

The sting in the tail was just around the corner.... we reached a small stone bridge... ponte ferreira but where was our hostel. I checked google maps... a little further along and the  round a bend... but of course the 'along' was in fact 'up' and the final struggle was before us. Our feet were now dragging and muscles were threatening to mutiny as we crawled up the final test of the day. 

I The welcoming sight of the hostel greeted us from the top of the hill and we pulled our weary bodies through the gate. Greeted by some chairs outside in the sun, we threw our packs off and sat down, happy in that moment. Of course then we had to drag our arses over to reception to check in and pay and a halting conversation (my side) ensued. The managers side was a torrent of words of which I picked out a few and filled in the blanks, although I'm sure I lost some in translation. 

We were shown to a room with bunks, all the lower ones of which had gone, leaving us to painfully haul ourselves up to put on the sheet and pillowcase provided. It was a mixed dorm and not the best chamce of a good night's sleep but hey ho... beggars cannot be choosers. Besides this was pretty much the only place to stay! 

The latter part of the day involved food and conversation with an american guy from san fransisco and making friends with the hostel cat (me that is). The meal we ate was pretty good though the starter should have probably been the main course, and the main course dispensed with, but we struggled through as much as we could before heading for a shower and a much deserved lie down. It was a beautiful peaceful and occasionally painful first day.  Looking forward to the days ahead! 

Buenas noches (or something to that effect)