Walking the Camino de Santiago

Sept 6

“Roll with it, roll with it
And you can go with the flow of it
Roll with it, roll with it
And you can go with the flow of it” 
- Tyrone Wells

I started the day early walking out of A Guarda with Christian. Luca still needs to be off his foot for a couple more days, but Christian is doing well. We will meet Luca at our destination when we arrive. Today is one of the longest walks by distance, between now and arriving at Santiago de Compostela. The destination today is the city of Baiona. It was founded in 140 BC, and originally was the main fishing port of the Galicia region in Spain. I’m looking forward to seeing it.

Throughout the day there were many memorable moments. One of those moments was when we came upon a small chapel off the trail with an elderly woman sitting outside. As she saw that we were pilgrims, she stood up and loudly said “Peregrinos, Come Come I have a Sello (stamp)”. Christian and I decided to check it out. She was a lovely women full of life. She excitedly asked where we were from and then in her exuberance welcomed us to the small chapel and showed us where we could get our ‘Sello’ for our Camino Passport. She was very sweet and very excited to greet us.

At one point today our path led us into the town of Oia (pronounced (Oy-uh). Oia is small waterfront town that is home to the Monastery of Santa Maria de Oia and it’s associated cathedral. It is the only monastery of the Cistercian order situated on the sea. It was constructed in 1185. Unfortunately, we arrived during siesta, so it was closed, but I was able to take a couple of photos which shows it’s grandness.

Weaving in and out of farmland, I came across a beautiful horse. She was so sweet and I had to stop and pet her for a bit. She was very lovable and didn’t want me to stop scratching her.

Finally, the trail along the ocean poured out onto a very long walking path that would eventually lead to Baiona. It reminded me of the yellow brick road. There was no way you could get lost if you just stayed on the very obvious yellow trail. It was very long, it seemed to never stop, and our feet were growing weary.

Finally reaching Baiona (Buy-Oh-Nuh) we were both tired, sweaty and happy to have arrived in this beautiful seaside town. Once we found Luca at our accommodation for the evening, he greeted us with cold waters and slices of watermelon. A nice ending to a long and memorable day on the Camino.

My thoughts: The way the Camino leads you to different areas that touch your heart is always pretty incredible. Feeling grateful for being able to walk this trail and to still not have any issues (but tired feet at the end of the day). I’m fortunate to have met people on the trail from all over the world, and to have my hiking buddies. The Camino is now full of pilgrims on the trail. In a few days the Central Portugese and the Coastal Portugese routes will merge. That will make for even more pilgrims headed to Santiago. I’m considering a variant trail called the Viariant Espiritual, that would branch off in a few days. It sounds pretty cool.