Leaving the Land of the Barking Dogs

I love, love, love Portugal so it was a little sad spending our last night there, however, I will not miss the dogs. One bit Catherine, the following day one almost bit Ina. They jump out of nowhere and startle you and even the chained ones bark and bark. We are finding the Spanish dogs much more agreeable. So, Catherine left Friday morning and Ina and I set out for a long walk. It rained off and on in the a.m. but not too hard. It was somewhat annoying though as we constantly had to take off our backpacks, put raincoats on and then put packs and pack covers back on. Moments later it would be sunny and warm--too warm for raincoats--this went on for a few hours before remaining nice. We arrived in Ponte de Lima which is yet another gorgeous town (Kikas: you need to go there as well as Guimaraes--oh, and don´t worry about the above dog comments. I love Tita). Ina often has trouble finding vegetarian fare apart from potatoes, bread, and eggs so she was delighted to find a pizza place. It was great and with a great view of the roman bridge, river, and church. As Ina stood up to take a picture of the view, she inadvertently knocked a 3'x 5' painting off the wall. It was pretty funny. For days we had been noticing in the albergue sign-in sheets a Norwegian couple named Erik and Rita. We had seen very few pilgrims (only Frank, Dieter, and the lovely French couple) and I suggested to Ina that the non-Portuguese couple behind us might have been the elusive Norwegians who we had not met. Ina barrelled on over and said, "Are you Rita and Erik?". They were not. They were a befuddled Hungarian couple trying to work out what we were talking about. Moments later as Ina looked out the window, she saw (I heard it) a small tractor pulling a wagon of workers. It drove up onto the sidewalk and rammed into a beautiful old street lamp which tumbled to the plaza and broke in half. The workers got out of the wagon, moved the lamp to the side of the walk way and they all took off. It was all very bizarre. Yesterday we had a nice walk with a large hill. I walked awhile with Dieter and as we chatted we failed to pay attention to the yellow arrows and found ourselves somewhat lost. As any good German should do, he pulled out the GPS and informed me we were 500 meters past the turnoff. He also was able to use the device to let me know how long it took him to eat lunch and when he should drink water. The walk was lovely and there are beautiful homes, farms, plants, flowers, everywhere. I was disappointed to not see as many cute little lambs as last year. Farm town girl, Ina, thoughtfully informed me that they´d all been killed for Easter dinner.
We arrived in Valenca, the border town with Spain. It was nice (you know, compared to Tijuana) . Instead of Americans buying cheap silver, and salsa containers, there were loads of Spanish people there buying sheets and towels by the busload. There were no small children selling gum but I did see a big ad for Chiclets which I thought was something of a coincidence.
At the albergue we met a young Israeli guy who was starting out there.
We have had many long days of walking (the last three are 20+ mile days). Although I prepared somewhat (thanks M. Kem, I wouldn´t make it without you), I didn´t do as well as last year. THese long days are quite tough for ye olde chubby legs. I´m okay but I arrive kind of dragging myself in.
Today was a long walk from the border to the town of Redondela. I arrived at a couple of hours ago and hope that Ina has since arrived. There are very few people walking but we suspect we´ll meet more as many start at the border.
Christian will reportedly join us for a few days starting tomorrow in Pontevedra. This is the first time I´ve been able to check e-mail so I´m not sure of the plan but it will be great to see him again and Ina will really enjoy seeing him as well.
I´m tired and pretty hungry so I will go eat. Oh, although sad to leave Portugal, I am very happy to be in Spain. I really do feel quite at home here.
Hope all are enjoying the Easter holiday.



(CCW--glad you got home safely. We miss you. C. McQueen sends her regards. She wet her pants the day before yesterday. I´m not making this up. We think we were able to shake Frank but he kept trying to hitch the wagon. In Ponte de Lima he assured the employee at the hostel that he could stay in our room --we weren´t there when all of this transpired as we were in the town trying to avoid running into him--the woman was wise to him though and told him no and was very concerned when we arrived due to the shady guy. The first 5 hours of walking on Friday--until your flight we spoke of your whereabouts: c. is arriving in Porto. c. is eating big fat toast at cafe majestic. C. is taking a picture of Marcos Santos at Praca Batalha, etc.)