Day 2 Villa do Conde to Barcelos

I opened the shutters of my bedroom this morning and let in blue skies and a warm sun. Much more like it. Breakfast wasn’t served until 8:30 so the serious pilgrims had probably been on the road for a good few hours before I left the delightful guest house.

I was now back on familiar territory – not sure where I was but with a blind faith in finding a yellow arrow to guide me along the Way. Not a bad analogy for faith really – I’ve always been one for logic and maths and it was really physics and maths that got me exploring Christianity in the first place; but there is something quite glorious about jumping in feet first into a river of adventure, not having a clue about the journey but knowing that it all works out well in the end.

I came across a German woman from near Frankfurt who was going slowly. She was quite petite and her rucksack was too heavy for her. Unusually this was her first Camino and she was quite glad to have some company as the owner of the hotel where she had stayed in Porto had wept as he begged her not to walk by herself as she would not be safe. He was clearly old and mad but he had freaked her out a bit…we walked to Rates, linking up with a Canadian mother and daughter who were already starting to feel the strain after a couple of days. They had had enough by Rates so I pushed on to Barcelos, another 10 miles or so. The sun was really hot so I committed an quite unthinkable act for an Englishman – I put on some sunblock!

After a little break for a sandwich with a couple of nice Australians (the husband was walking with a prosthetic knee which is pretty hardcore) I decided to do a detour which was meant to add about a mile and a half to the route. The guidebook said it wasn’t way marked but it was a simple route to follow. Sadly, since the guidebook was written, some well-meaning local had put in some completely misleading waymarks. The intention was to climb a steep hill to reach a church with sweeping views down to the coast. Unfortunately, the result of the misleading signs was that I climbed the hill; descended the hill; realised I had gone wrong; went back up the hill. Fortunately there was a cafe at the top selling lemon cornettos aka the nectar of the gods. And the view was well worth it….

View from the top

Actually the walk through the woods was worth it too. Even twice. Very few people take this detour and wandering through peaceful eucalyptus woods was breathtaking.

A walk in the woods

Getting to Barcelos, I checked into the grotty hotel (place reeks of tobacco, will be sleeping with open windows) and headed into town for a meal. What I found though were statues to the famous Barcelos cockerel. The story goes that a pilgrim was falsely accused of theft and hanged – but a saint intervened to rescue him. Someone told the local sheriff as he was sitting down to dinner that the man was still alive at which point he said, “if the pilgrim is alive, so is this chicken!”. At which point the chicken on his plate jumped up and crowed. The sheriff then went and cut down the pilgrim.

Now this might be a little cynical but I heard exactly the same story in Spain last year in a different town. What are we meant to make of this?

A) on the Iberian peninsula, chicken is often served raw, so the food frequently jumps off the plate

B) someone nicked someone else’s story because it generated serious tourist dollars

C) chicken just comes back to life in these parts – it’s something in the feed; order a Kentucky Fried Chicken bargain bucket in Spain and by the time you’ve got it back home, the bucket is basically ready to fly away.

Today was some 22 miles – tomorrow will be the same. So far the feet are holding up and I need them to get me to my hotel tomorrow night so I can watch the election results coming in. After that I’ll decide whether it’s worth coming back to England at all or whether I should just buy a business in Portugal. Maybe a chicken pie factory.

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