I’m out and about once again. Out meaning on a big trip.
As a preface, I’m doing a pilgrimage from Porto in Portugal to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. It’s walking a Caminho in Portuguese, Camino in Spanish. The reason for the journey varies from spiritual, self-awareness, connection to others, the land or maybe to be one with yourself. Time will tell me which prevails. The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is believed to be the resting place of St James the apostle. Pilgrims follow different paths that all end at the cathedral in Santiago. The French route, way to hard over the Pyrenees. The Central Portuguese route, a few too many cobblestones and hills. The Senda Litoral or Portuguese Litoral along the coast, just right. Without knowing why, I’ve always wanted to walk a caminha (not knowing anything about different routes), it has been a bucket list item for years. Not being quite as adventurous as others before me, I’ve been waiting for someone to accompany me. The typical response I got was, ‘Are you crazy?’ (Maybe) Miracle of miracles, after chatting with a long time friend Andre, I find out his wife Tina and Friends are planning a Caminho. I got myself an invite to join them and the journey began.
After many Whatsapp messages going back and forth, I finally met 2 more of our pilgrim group, Cynthia and Joana. We had 2 more in the group but they had to put their pilgrimage off until another time. Sad for us all. Then another miracle occurred. A friend Rosa, who has done several Caminhos, introduced us to the South Florida chapter of pilgrims. On one of their monthly local walks, we met Amy, a longtime friend of Tina’s. They hadn’t seen each other in a very long time. Amy, an avid hiker decided she and her husband would join us for the last half of the walk. And Tina’s sister Evany wants to walk a little here and a little there (I think she’ll do more than that). To finish off the group, Andre agreed to be our Uber Man. He’ll drive our luggage to the next stop each day and rescue us if needed. Now we have a group of 8.
And the preparation begins.
We met several times a week to walk. Three miles, five miles, even ten miles. Walk, walk and more walking. On dirt trails, on paved trails, any place we could find. For elevation we walked an old garbage dump converted into a park, probably the highest point in Florida, with a redeeming factor of nesting burrowing owls. Besides training ourselves for endurance, we started testing gear. Sneakers, trail shoes, hiking boots, hiking poles. Small daypacks, medium daypacks, larger packs. Water bottles, water bladders, beer cans (just checking to see if you are paying attention). Luckily we had Amy to impart lots of equipment wisdom. Gaitor girls to cover the top of our shoe of choice to keep the dirt and sand out. Toe socks to keep toes from rubbing and blisters away. We tried toe liners with hiking socks over them, toe socks no liners, mini crews, calf high crews, compression knee highs, compression knee highs with toes. Well the last 2 may be just me. And I’ll put this delicately not for the faint at heart (feel free to skip this piece of female knowledge).. The infamous pee tube. Usually we meaning women do not try to imitate or simulate any other part of men. But when it comes to peeing on the go, men do have an anatomical advantage. Thus the invention of the pee tube. Yes, the pee tube. It comes in many varieties and no one knows ahead of time which will work best for them. So, pick one, test it and hope it works so you don’t waste too much time and money. Most people do the shower test. Then the with zipper pants or elastic waisted pants. TMI yet. Next comes the pee rag to replace toilet paper, more ecological and always available hanging from your pack. Yucky yet?
Let’s move on.
We each picked the gear we thought would work best, passed our thoughts around, made big decisions including lots of returns and we were ready to go. FYI, REI played a big part in our lives over the past few months and I thank them for all their help. Done with the background. Once again Shaina came and helped with my packing. She’s very good with yes, no, no deliberating.
Day before leaving, April 7
All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go… catchy isn’t it? Scott and Marge came over for a send off – really to eat the yummy desserts I bought. I’m bed by midnight. Amazing, I actually get to sleep tonight. I do feel stressed.. I’ll be away over two months.. After my Caminho I head to Switzerland for a short visit, get Lora and head to Czech Republic to meet up with Oyuna coming in from Mongolia and her friend coming in from Armenia, spend 2 weeks driving around, then Lora and I fly to Albania for 2 weeks before I go home via Switzerland. Run-on sentence.. Just a little. It’s the stress kicking in.
Leaving Day
The biggest decision this morning is Trirail or Uber Ernie to Miami airport. The weather is threatening flooding so Trirail wins. Ernie and I went out to load my luggage into the car. Greeting us in the garden was a Green Heron. Painted buntings we see all the time but not Green Herons at the house. One of my favorites. Must be a good sign of what’s to come. Joana got dropped at my house at 11:00 so we could catch the Tri-Rail at 11:30. Joana forgot her bubble jacket and no time to go home to retrieve it. I let her shop in my closet where she picked out my Costco fur coat. Oh no, another decision. Delray, Deerfield or Boca station to avoid drenching rains. Ended up Ernie drove us to Boca. No rain. Sunny out. I’m deleting my weather app as we speak. Ernie waited the 10 minutes until the train arrived. We took our departure photos, obligatory for all trips, boarded no problem except for my heavy luggage Which consisted of Caminho gear, 3 other countries gear, and requested items for friends. Joana’s first time on Tri-Rail. What a relaxing way to get to the airport, and only $6.50. Off the train, up the escalator, walk to the tram, wait 2 minutes, board, ride, exit, walk on moving walkways, and more and more and more. TAP airlines is at the very very end. Escalator broken. Not doing steps. Elevator refused to come. We waited and waited and waited with everybody else and finally one of the three opened and we squeezed into the last two spots (we’ll maybe it was one). We exit the elevator and walk down past all the airlines and all the other airlines and then some more airlines until we got to TAP. Then we got on the long long check-in line Went through security, no line at pre-check. I couldn’t find my jacket. I was waiting for Joana to get through the regular line so I could go back and look for it. I waited forever, finally called her and yay, she has my jacket ..relief. Yay yay no crying. Not a great terminal. There’s an Earl of Sandwich, Starbucks and one sit down bar/ restaurant. We opted for the sit down bar/ restaurant. They actually had really good fish tacos. Of course, $70 later for the two of us. A bit pricey. It’s 3:30 and our plane just arrived so we probably won’t board till 4:30. Hopefully the winds will be with us and we’ll pick up time on the flight over. Although who needs to land early when you land at 6:00 in the morning? Finally boarding. I had premium boarding and it took me all the extra time to prepare my seat and me. First shoes/hiking boots off, climb up on my seat and attempt to put my carry on in the overhead. NOT. It was so high up and my bag a little too heavy. No way I was stowing the bag. I looked as pathetic as possible and asked the strongest/only guy nearby for help. Needless to say my bag is up there but may not be coming down on arrival.. At least not by my hand. Next, on with the compression socks. Not just any compression socks. Compression socks with toes. Reasons: One, so I stay prepared for my toed hiking socks which will be my best friend over the 3 weeks of our Caminho and two so I can wear my flip flops on board and maintain my circulation which I’m told is important at ‘my’ age. Now, prepare my seat pockets for the flight: head phones, mask (more comfortable in the seat pocket than on my face), cell phone charging cable, heavy socks for when I freeze which should be any minute now and last but not least, my foot roller to maintain my foot health during the next 8 hours. I have an aisle seat in the middle 4 seats. No one next to me, then a couple and little baby. So far he’s an angel.
17:47 and we are off.
Jacket on, wrapped in a blanket, ear buds in and movie running (Now You See Me Now You Don’t). Great prep for my Caminho. First snack onboard: chocolate bar. Meal of chicken pretty good. I’m impressed. Watched Roofman. Went for a walkabout. Wondered why all the babies onboard were so perfectly quiet. Drugs? Slept (no drugs). Awoke in time for breakfast. I pocketed the mystery sandwich, maybe cheese, and the chocolate no peanuts, no fun muffin. Maybe I’ll be hungry later and maybe it will save me $35. I’m having no pain in my ankle, back or any body part even after 7 or 8 hours of an airplane seat. Is it the pressure of the cabin working a miracle or just an ordinary miracle that comes from almost starting my Caminho pilgrimage. A great unknown I will never have an answer to. Uneventful flight although Joana said we had bumps. I guess I slept at the right time. Easy landing but it was the longest trip ever to get in the ‘vicinity’ of the terminal. Then I had to get help getting my bag down from the super high overhead storage.
Lisbon Airport
Deplaning meant walking down a staircase to ground level, boarding a bus and another long ride to the terminal, followed by a long walk thru the terminal to immigration. The EU now uses an entry/exit system called EES. First we went to machines that wanted to scan our passport, take our finger prints, take our picture and ask a bunch of questions about hotels, length of stay and money. Joana went first. She failed finger prints twice before it accepted hers. She passed everything else. My turn. I had no intentions of failing anything. I passed passport. Then I failed picture once. The machine told me to close my mouth. Of course now I’m laughing and trying to close my mouth. Somehow I passed. Next I failed fingerprints 3 times. The message came up ‘go to the manual line’, whatever that was. Turns out everyone has to go to that line. Now I have a real agent working with me. I passed the photo first time (I’m a quick learner). I failed fingerprints again so the agent held my hand down and magically my prints recorded. He asked how long I was staying and stamp stamp all done. Long long walk to baggage claim. I think I got my 10000 steps in. Next we had to book a luggage pickup storage company called Luggit. They got our luggage at the airport and will drop it at our Airbnb later.
Day 1 – Lisbon
We Ubered to the Castle gate area. Walked the Alfama area most of the day. Still love the narrow streets. As exciting as the first time. Stopped for pastel de nata and cappuccino. Cynthia flew in via Philadelphia but made it in time to meet us for lunch of bacalhau (cod fish). Finally 3:00 time to check-in. Enter the code for the building door. Luggage arrived at the same time. Up to the second floor. Enter the code for the apartment door. Notice garbage bag in the kitchen. Strange. Start walking around only to discover the apartment hadn’t been cleaned yet! And we had plans to sleep before evening plans. Waited over an hour for a cleaner. It took a couple hours to clean. Wifi didn’t work, router not plugged in, two power plugs to white box noon to router. Didn’t help switching it. Tina and Evany show up place still being cleaned. Lots of problems with the apartment even though it’s a nice place. We try to ignore it all for now. We shower while the kitchen is still getting cleaned. We decide to walk to theFado dinner Cynthia booked for us. 40 minutes walk up down up down up down.. Get the picture? Finally arrive at Senhor Vinho. Even though we are very tired with jetlag, we enjoy a delicious 3 course dinner, mine was shrimp, branzino and chocolate mousse. There were 3 rotating singers (not in circles) with great voices. No one believed me when I said I enjoyed it more with my eyes closed . We thought it was over after the third set. Some people left but then the fourth set started. Now it’s 11:30 and I need to sleep.. Uber back, the ride seemed level, where did the ups and downs go? 16000 steps today.