Table mannerswere the first thing to go!
My journal entry for May 25, 2008 (slightly edited to remove some personal commentary):
Sunday, our day of those Camino angels people keep talking about! We left Tui around 8 a.m. under heavy skies and thick air.
I didn't sleep very well last night, loud talking woke me up and I thought it was other pilgrims downstairs having breakfast. I could not believe it was already morning. I decided to just lay there until I got my "wake up" call and did go back to sleep but still kept waking up from the noise.
Because the refugio had no kitchen, I couldn't heat up water for my coffee "teabag." Talk about a miserable start! My socks and towel didn't dry so I pinned them to my backpack. Nothing else dried either so I just bagged it all up.
A bunch of young Spaniards were hanging out near the refugio and chatted with us a bit as they finished their cocktails from the night before (maybe it was just orange juice in the glass)! They told us they love the British and we didn't tell them otherwise! They wished us a Buen Camino as we headed off, I full of worries about a bag full of still damp laundry in my pack. As we headed out of town, a jogger also wished us a Buen Camino.
We entered a wildlife preserve which was hauntingly beautiful. Right before a very old stone bridge, there was a shrine to a St. Telmo, who caught fever and died there on his way back from Santiago. There was a lovely sense of peace at that spot, where we briefly chatted with a German and an Irish guy who had started from Lisbon earlier in the month. For some reason, the German guy reminded me of a leprechaun!
Soon after the sun came out and various other garments got pinned to my pack. And the stuff actually started to dry!
The wildlife preserve ended way too soon and we found ourselves on a long stretch through a massive industrial area. It was truly trying on the body and soul to walk this stretch.
Karin needed a bathroom break and I can always pee and at that very moment, we came upon a firehouse with very healthy looking young firemen washing their vehicles. They let us use their bathroom, the first of our Camino angels!
The walk through the rest of the industrial area and the outer edges of Porrino was difficult. It was like walking along Route 70 at times. We missed an arrow and what we thought was the bridge noted in the guidebook turned out to the the on ramp to a major interstate type highway. We walked on for a bit but realized something was very wrong and started to head back. Two Spanish traffic cops saw us and came to a screeching halt on the highway. They wanted to help and tried to give us directions to send us the right way. The whole thing must have looked pretty comical to drivers speeding by!
At this point, my pack felt very heavy, my feet hurt and I was hot and very hungry. But not far down the road, we saw a bar and heard "Hola" from behind the fence. Turns out it was our friends from Brazil! We stopped and I had a beer, pulpo and bread. It really felt good to rest for a while. Even with this much needed break, the last few kilos were just plain hard.
We finally got to the town center which had a small plaza and a chapel. But Porrino just lacked the charm of all the other places we had seen so far. We found the refugio. It was a new modern building with very good facilities. A big laundry area with indoor clothes lines and a full kitchen! Best of all, they had vending machines which served beer - how good is that!
There was a creek on a small river that ran next to the refugio and on the other side was a playground/park. After showering and doing laundry, we were ready to head out for supplies and a meal. But we learned the supermercados were closed on Sunday! Breakfast would come from the vending machines - a bit more angelic intervention? Was still dreading the thought of not having any lunch in my backpack for tomorrow.
We wondered out and visited the park across the river. There was a giant statue of a naked woman right next to the play area. How very European!
We stopped at a bakery which was closing up and they let us buy whatever they had left. I got a croissant but then lost it somewhere.
The woman at the refugio told us of a nearby bar where we could have dinner. What a great place - totally rustic! There were lines of hams hanging from the bar ceiling and kegs of wine which turned out to be homemade. We had to wait in the bar until the restaurant opened at 8. I wasn't heartbroken!
While sitting there, I thought I heard someone speaking German but no one in the bar looked even remotely German. Turns out the owner's wife spoke German, we could communicate. She was a very sweet lady and took good care of us. The food and service were great. Ray had wine which was served in a big white bowl, it was really the coolest thing!
The woman told us it was her daughter's first communion that day. When it was time to go, she topped off our half empty wine bottle and gave us extra frittata and bread for breakfast. So much better than the vending machines!
It turned out to be an amazing night that was well earned after such a tough day!
Additional Thoughts:
I noticed my journaling had gotten a bit less coherent and cohesive after my first full day of walking. But, I've only cleaned up the grammer and sentence structure, it is what it is! At this point I had run out of paper and began writing in blank spaces in my Camino guidebook.
In the restaurant, we came across a group of New Zealanders who Karin had been chatting with on one of the Camino forums. Small world!
The dorms in the Porrino refugio were upstairs while the bathrooms and everything else where downstairs. It was here that late in the evening hours when everyone else was in bed, I decided to blow dry my socks on the hand dryer in the bathroom. It worked it worked so well I dried the rest of my laundry that way! It felt good to go to sleep knowing my clothes were already dry.
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