Day 17 - To Oliveira de Azeméis

Last night Barbara took her turn to sleep rather badly for some reason, I slept badly a couple of nights ago. Maybe she was too warm. We'd had to ask for the heating to be turned on earlier in the evening as the room was decidedly chilly, but when it eventually came-on it became much better. I slept OK, but the bed felt as old as the hotel and was not very comfortable. 

Breakfast was not included in our room rental and nobody was around when we were ready to depart. We had heard some voices last night that seemed to be from the room next door, but everything was silent as we left. I took the opportunity to take one or two photos as we left, there hadn't been chance yesterday.

These, I hope, give a little of the feeling off the place. it's like a time warp.

Yesterday we had a very nice coffee break as a cafe very close to the hotel and, at that time, checked their opening time for breakfast. The very cheerful owner said that he was open from 7:00 to 22:00 and he would happily serve us with breakfast. We took him up on his offer this morning and went to his cafe at about 8:15. It was rather busy, but the owner instantly recognised us, told us to sit at a table, and a few minutes later was with us deciding on suitable breakfasts for us. We both decided on fresh bread, cheese and ham. These  were soon prepared served with excellent coffees. A little later, when we'd finished, he came over again for a short chat. We suggested that he, somehow, arranged for an advertising sign nearby as the cafe is just off the obvious route for people on the Camino. He should get lots of custom with the correct advertising.

After great goodbyes and thanks from us we made our departure. We hope that his new venture is successful, he deserves to.

It took us a little while to get out of the town and on our way. The route moved into forest walking quite quickly, again we had problems with very rough and/or flooded tracks from time to time, but nothing impassible.

We did have a rather unsettling incident though at one point. At the time we had just left a forested area and we're walking on the road near to a large convent and religious centre. Here Barbara noticed a bloke on a moped in the large car parking area that ran along side the road that we were walking on. He was following us, as we moved on so did he. As we moved on he eventually left the car park and followed us about 50 metres to our rear at a walking speed for about a quarter of a mile. At one point I deliberately stopped and turned around to face him, he just sat there, not moving on until I returned to walking and left him about 100 metres behind. We shortly afterwards left the road and went back onto a forest track. He didn't follow us and we saw no more of him.

The incident made us remember the young woman, Ava, that we had met a few days before. She was travelling alone, and camping out most nights. We wondered how she would cope with such an encounter. We hadn't seen her, other than in our meeting the other day, so she would probably be further away by now. 

Our forest walking gradually changed into more "urban" walking as more and more buildings intruded into the countryside. Eventual we were walking through rather dreary areas.

The Camino route seemed to be deliberately taking us through all the backstreets of somewhat rundown areas. It was still hilly and the weather had become very humid. All in all that part of today's walk wasn't very enjoyable. To crown it all there was also a great shortage of either suitable sitting points or anywhere to take a break and a coffee. We had found one place at about 11am where we got a drink, but that was off the Camino route, we'd just noticed it marked as nearby on the map.

Our steady progress, through the unimpressive countryside, continued for some while until at lunch time we were again looking for somewhere to rest and get a bite to eat. We'd seen that another cafe was shown, nearby, on our map. We eventually reached it, it looked fine from outside so we decided to go in. As we entered, through a central door, Barbara turned left towards a spare table just as I glanced to the right to see Ava sitting at another table. It was a great coincidence seeing her sitting there after discussing her only about an hour previously. She was fine and making good progress, still sleeping "rough".

We talked for a long while before she decided to move on, she'd already been at the cafe for about an hour recharging her phone etc and needed to move on to get planned stopping place for tonight.

We had our lunch and enjoyed the break, eventually starting the last stage of our planned the for today.

The weather had changed a little when we came out of the cafe, it was somewhat fresher, with a little breeze, much nicer to walk in. Also the countryside was a little more interesting. At one point the footpath shares a rather narrow bridge, under a road, with the local railway line. The path simply runs alongside the track for about 100 metres, no sign of a fence or other protection.

The rail line however sees to be hardly ever used. The rails are very rusty, but with just a faint sign that a train had run along there at some time in the last few weeks. We didn't see any today.

Finally we got near to our destination town, Oliviera, to see the reality of what we'd already seen on the map. We've spent a lot of time today climbing steadily, sometimes descending a little, but the map showed that the very last stage was severely uphill into Oliviera. And that's what it was, a long, and in some places very steep, uphill climb towards the town centre. It seemed never ending as it became very steep towards the top

We were unsure what we might find when we eventually got to the top and the town. There were two albergues listed but one had a very damning review with it, warning pilgrims try stay away from "a filthy place". After last night's place, which eventually was just about OK but expensive, we decided to book into a four-star hotel. 

We did get a good rate when we said that we were weary pilgrims, which at that point was perfectly true. The place is very nice, totally different to last night. We'll enjoy it here.