Chapter 3
Hola Amigos,
Greetings from the trail!
Enough of the posturing, pontificating and positioning: we started our walk this afternoon (Tuesday)!
3.5 hours later, after a cheeky 8.5km stroll we had walked to Cape St Vincent.
After posing for the usual snaps it was another 8.5km back to our hostel on the northern edge of Sagres located on the extreme south westerly tip of Portugal 🇵🇹.
It all starts here!
Santiago here we (are trying to🙏) come!
Please note the word ‘trying!’
It is a very deliberate choice of word.
There is no ‘given’ with this sort of challenge.
Things can and do go wrong and I’ve met enough pilgrims on the road to Santiago to know that injury can and does strike: and for some it is catastrophic and signals the end of their Camino.
9 years ago, on my very first Camino when I walked with my son Jake to Santiago de Compostella from St Jean Pied Port, a small village near Biarritz in France we witnessed such a situation.
After 3 weeks of walking we met Jem, a pilgrim (‘peregrino’ in Spanish) from Luxembourg.
At the very point where he reached Astorga, over 300 miles along the Camino de Santiago, his feet had become a bloodied mess.
As he hobbled into the small town, he told us that he was taking 2 rest days for his feet to recover!
Sadly I think that limping peregrino was kidding himself: he had no chance of continuing.
In truth, Jem would probably have needed 2 months for his feet to recover!
It reminded me then and it reminds me now:
There are no certainties in life and there are certainly none on the Camino!
My youngest son Jake and his wife Abbi, in both of their ‘Buen Camino’ text messages to me on Monday, repeated my own words from back 2017:
“You’ve got to look after your feet!”
Out of the mouths of babes!
Over the last decade I’ve read so much on Camino forums, blogs. Apps and books about blister prevention and foot care.
The views of some are strongly held and even more strongly expressed!
Amazingly how some people can get very agitated when discussing this topic!
As for me, I have come to the kinder and more simple conclusion that we all have different feet and that certain things may help me protect my feet but may be less helpful to yours.
There is no prescribed way on ‘The Way.’
It seems to me that our own personal preferences are often born from painful personal experiences.
Wow! Some people do get so hot under the collar when the subject of blister prevention comes up.
My solution is a pretty simple one!
Use sheep’s wool.
Wrap the blister in sheep’s wool and allow the healing powers of lanolin that naturally exists in the wool, to work its magic.
Often in life, the old ways really are the best way!
It would be truly fantastic on 2 May to report no blisters!
Time alone will tell!
I’ve already mentioned the size of Camino Steve’s rucsack in chapter 1 of these blogs.
He officially weighed it on Sunday night: 4.35kg!
That’s simply impossible for me to match.
My sister Lizzie who joins me for the last 260 km of this walk from Porto to Santiago still can’t believe it.
She is clearly more competitive than me!
On Monday morning she was threatening to travel out on 20 April without a sleeping bag.
Her motive is obvious.
Beat ‘Camino Steve’ at his own game!
Me?
In terms of points scoring, I’m actually claiming a quick equaliser.
I’m now applying a ‘pro rata clause’ to any rucksack weighing competitions.
My own pack weighs a very resourceful and respectable 6.45 kg: my lightest ever.
But it is still 2 kg heavier than Camino Steve’s.🙄
In that first chapter, I had previously acknowledged that Steve had gone 1-0 up in our personal ‘Camino Duel’ which may well last all the way to Santiago.
My ‘equaliser’ arrived courtesy of Georgia, a friend of Jake and Abbi’s in Leeds. She’s lovely.
‘I’ve always got Georgia on my mind!’ 🎵 The Ray Charles version specifically!
Quite rightly she pointed out that I am approximately 8 inches (20 cm) taller than Camino Steve.
Therefore she reasoned, my clothes weigh far more than his, and my shoes and crocs were far bigger and therefore far heavier.
Such a valid point!
Especially when my clothes are size XL to his size S.
Thanks to Georgia I can declare with utter confidence, that quid pro quo, I’m actually traveling lighter than Steve!
Great independent officiating Georgia! Thank you! No VAR was necessary!
Goal Flash Martin 1 – Camino Steve 1
Yay!🎉
My 12 kg ‘beast of burden’ from 2023 is now a distant heavy memory.
On that walk I was also carrying a 2.5kg Canon camera for 500 miles – all the way!
Ridiculous! I carried way too much!
Over the next month my blogs will most likely feature frequent use of the word ‘tactical!’
Tactics apply to every aspect of Camino life: tactical toileting when the ‘Dawn Chorus’ of flushers is at its peak and tolerance towards queuing for the use of the cubicle is at its lowest.
Tactical hostelling is also a thing: a pilgrim may try to get the best bed in the hostel, or get the first hot shower of the day before they inevitably run cold.
Tactical hand washing is less competitive.
Here a pilgrim (mostly me) will try to wash their clothes before 2pm in order to optimize the full drying power of the sun before dusk.
For Steve and I tactics featured even before we left the UK.
Once my fantastic friend Ian Robottom had offered to pick us up in Faro on Tuesday and take us out west, Steve and I had decided to walk to Cape St Vincent, from Sagres on that same day and before we had even officially started the walk. Thus saving us that extra walk today: Wednesday 25 March.
Our reasoning?
Our walk hostel to the Cape and back was approximately 16km.
By walking those 16 km a day early we were making a tough first day’s distance of 31 km (19 miles) slightly easier.
Tactics! I have so many more!
The weather is glorious and forecast to remain the same for the next week at least.
How lucky are we?
Though Thursday looks a bit tasty!
And testy! 26 degrees!🌞
With sunshine comes other challenges though. Heat, sun protection, how much water to carry: remembering water is heavy are just a few.
There will be heaps more tactics for me to reference for sure.
I’ve just finished my tactical use of clothing. On these 2 travel days I’ve worn old socks, t shirts and boxers. Last night the last of them were binned.
Now I’ll have to start washing my daily kit from today.
More tactics!
Those boxers owed me nothing! More holes than Swiss cheese!
We definitely need to give a ‘shout out’ from both of us to Ian and his lovely wife Jane!
It was a truly magnificent gesture of his to drive east to Faro from his own holiday apartment in Albufeira, before driving another 70km west to deposit us in Sagres.
So so kind! Thank you Ian! 4 juicy oranges were also left for us. They’ve gone west too!
All Ian would accept in return was a coffee in the square. I owe you one mate!👏
Tuesday’s walking was easy.
Our rucksacks were left at the hostel. We carried water bottle alone.
On the way back from the Cape we both ran out of water: it was 20 degrees, warm with a cooling breeze.
Running out of water provided a valuable reminder that we need to judge it better in the more inhospitable areas of this walk.
Even more tactics!
It was an uplifting walk.
The sea, a beautiful deep blue, was always in view and the Atlantic waves thundered against the craggy cliffs. Even on such a clam day, we could see the brooding presence that permeates that ocean.
Nicky and I had visited Cape St Vincent in October last year: a recce visit as I started to plan this trip. It had been very dusty and rocky then.
This time it was covered in lush green vegetation with beautiful flowers in full spring bloom: yellow, pink and purple flowers carpeted those craggy cliffs.
Is there anything more uplifting than sunshine, sea and nature in full harmony? Add in good company and you have a winning ticket.
“Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!”
Tomorrow we head for a hostel called Barranco da Fonte, 31 km north of the Cape (according to Google Maps!)
Can we trust Google Maps?
Typical! My legs fee like 2 blocks of concrete today. I played football twice over the weekend.
Not sure that was the most sensible pre Camino training exercise! Mind you I’m only a goalkeeper these days: so I don’t move much!
When I feel pain on this Camino I will try to factor it into just where my life is and what I have experienced so far.
Pain is usually fleeting.
I’ve so so much to be grateful for.
Real pain is what my sister and her family are trying to manage. Her lovely daughter Hannah, lost to a senseless action.
And that is what this walk is all about!
Celebrating that talented young woman and ensuring that her memory and legacy live on.
If you want to support Hannah’s legacy and the French charity established in her name you can do so through the link below. Thank you!
What is a bit of foot and leg pain in comparison?
That’s the Canino though in all its painful (at times), purposeful glory.
Buen Camino
Thanks for the read.
Martin x
Ps Obviously my blogs are a day behind my walks!
So at 5.30pm we rocked up at our hostel in Barrancao da Fonta! We’ve walked 22.3 miles: nearly 40 km! It was a brilliant walk. More on it tomorrow!
Shower time!
Answer to yesterday’s question:
What is the significance of the Scallop shell on our rucksacks?
Answer
The scallop shell is the primary symbol of the Camino de Santiago, representing the many paths taken by pilgrims (the lines) that converge at a single destination, Santiago de Compostela.
It symbolizes protection, rebirth, and the journey itself, often worn on backpacks or clothes to signify a traveller on the Camino
Question 3
What was the boat made of that brought St James to Northern Spain and helped to forge the 1000 year old dynasty that is the ‘Camino de Santiago?’
You will find the answer in my next blog!
Martin Moorman is a 61 year old retired Headteacher who lives with his wife Nicky, daughter and her family in North Yorkshire, UK. Happily married for 36 years, Martin and Nicky have 3 grown up children, all happily married too. In his spare time Martin loves walking, photography, football, renovating cooking and talking rubbish to anyone who will listen!
Martin Moorman 