Yesterday evening turned out to be quite a party. In the last blog I left you hanging with the exciting news that our washing had just been returned, but we were then still on our own in the albergue. All was soon to change.
Later in the evening, as a reply to a comment, I put -
Since I wrote and published tonight's blog the place has become very busy, initially there was only Barbara and myself now at 22:20 there are at least eight people staying here. That's about three times as many as we've met since we started. I'm not sure where everyone has suddenly appeared from, but there's a much nicer atmosphere all of a sudden. The weather forecast is still bad though.
It was like the United Nations. We are from the U.K., there was a man from The Irish Republic, a lady from Australia, a couple from Denmark and another couple from Belgium. All steaming gently in front of the very cosy wood-burner. All except us had travelled far yesterday, much further than us, and they're all planning on traveling onwards much further than we are. The couple from Belgium are cyclists. They had cycled something like 100km yesterday and were planning in flying out from Porto in only a couple of days time, so they’ll be cycling a long way again on each of the next few days
Carlos was very busy ensuring everyone was happy and doing his admin. Everyone admired his very special Credential stamp. To add to the fun he presented each person, as they were settling in, a small glass of 10 year old, very strong, Port-wine. He then left the bottle on the table to be finished by anyone who wanted more. It didn't last long. It was a very cosy evening, very reminiscent of evenings we've had on the Spanish route in the past.
This morning was, as expected, fairly busy as everyone collected together their boots, socks, coats etc that had been drying-out overnight, and made ready to go. The weather, as we expected, was rain. Nowhere as heavy as yesterday, thankfully. We decided to walk wearing our wind/shower resistant jackets, but having out larger poncho-style raincoats available if needed. This turned out to be a good choice as, although the rain never actually stopped all morning, it stayed reasonably light. It was only at the very end of our walk that we found that we were really getting wet. By then we had arrived at our lodgings for tonight.
Carlos had promised that today's route, and the next few days, were to be very scenic and interesting. Such was the case, there was a great variety of interest all throughout the walk. We spotted or first bluebells, and some whitebells?, the first we've seen this year.
In one or two places we saw what seemed to be entrances to very dark caves, we couldn't decide if they were man-made or natural but none looked inviting.
In one village we had two unusual events, the first was that our road was partly blocked by small landslip, caused probably by the sustained rainfall.
Ansiao is a reasonably large town nestling in the valley of the Nabao River, the same river that flows through Tomar, that town we had a rest day at a couple of days ago. The River here is much smaller and, looking at the map, it seems as if the river’s source is only a mile or two up in the hills nearby.
Our lodgings for tonight are at a small hotel just out of the Ansiao town centre. We saw a little of the town as we passed through. By the time we arrived there we'd walked continuously for about three and a half hours, so when we spotted a rather nice looking cafe/shop we tumbled straight in. It was the first place today that not only provided the possibility of a hot drink and good food but also the first place to sit. I've mentioned before that the one facility that is missing on virtually all long walking routes is any form of place to sit. It is not unusual to walk all day and not be able to sit on anything but the ground. Very few benches of even low walls.
The cafe was very nice with an excellent selection of good food available. We opted for a large piece of pizza each with a hot drink. We were joined but our Australian lady, who was walking on her own, and also met the Irish man who was just leaving as we arrived. He asked if we had seen the other male pilgrim in the town. We had just done so, but he was walking away from us at the time. He was obviously a pilgrim, but not someone that we had seen before. He, noticeably, carried a very long, fork-ended, wooden staff, very distinctive. Shortly afterwards he came into the cafe and sat down just nearby. We soon got into conversation, Barbara more than me, as it turned out that he was French, and Barbara was able to talk to him, for a short time, in French.
He was on a completely different trip than us, or for that matter, any of the other people we've met so far. He had left Paris some months ago and walked all the way to Santiago de Compostela. Having arrived there he was now walking on to Fatima to the shrine there. So he is walking south just as we are walking north. What an adventure!
Tonight's hotel is very nice with, as always so far in Portugal, very pleasant and helpful staff. The strange thing about it though is that, as we were being shown to our room it was almost like visiting the “haunted house”. It is quite a big building and all the internal corridors are almost completely dark, no lights on anywhere. The woman showing us to the room was obviously used to this arrangement, but we were soon almost lost. Later, after changing and settling in, we went back down to the reception/bar to complete our registration and had to take a torch with us to find the way. Very strange. There is a very efficient, and very hot, radiator in the room which at the moment is doing great service in drying out out clothes ready for tomorrow, outside it is, strangely very sunny. That wasn't forecast at all, but very nice.
This evening we had arranged to eat in the restaurant at 7:30. When we went down the only other people in the rather large restaurant were a couple who I immediately thought were other pilgrims. So it turned out, Brigitte and Pasqual are from near Bordeaux, France. They invited us to sit at their table. They only speak a little English, I speak a (very) little French, but Barbara is fairly fluent in French, with heavy Spanish influences at the moment. The hotel/restaurant manager only speaks Portuguese, none of us do. Nevertheless we had a very good and interesting evening comparing routes and guide books, and joking with the restaurant manager. They started from Lisbon, as we did, but they have travelled here via Fatima, and are aiming to walk to Santiago. They were planning on walking further than us tomorrow, everyone does, but after seeing our guidebook, which shows places to stop that their guide didn't, they may stop earlier than the originally planned. We may see some more of them later perhaps.
This evening we had arranged to eat in the restaurant at 7:30. When we went down the only other people in the rather large restaurant were a couple who I immediately thought were other pilgrims. So it turned out, Brigitte and Pasqual are from near Bordeaux, France. They invited us to sit at their table. They only speak a little English, I speak a (very) little French, but Barbara is fairly fluent in French, with heavy Spanish influences at the moment. The hotel/restaurant manager only speaks Portuguese, none of us do. Nevertheless we had a very good and interesting evening comparing routes and guide books, and joking with the restaurant manager. They started from Lisbon, as we did, but they have travelled here via Fatima, and are aiming to walk to Santiago. They were planning on walking further than us tomorrow, everyone does, but after seeing our guidebook, which shows places to stop that their guide didn't, they may stop earlier than the originally planned. We may see some more of them later perhaps.
