Sarria to Portomarín

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

A cool comfortable walk from Sarria to Portomarín    Walking Day #27

Today was another very nice day walking on the Camino de Santiago. I started this pilgrimage exactly one month ago, on April 18, my father's birthday. With a rest day in Burgos, and missing three days of walking due to an illness (intestinal bacteria), I am now walking on my 27th day. Today is notable for two reasons: first, Sarria is where many people start the Camino de Santiago, because if you walk the last 100 kilometers, you earn the compostela, or certificate of completion; and second, we hit the 100-kilometers-to-go mark about half way on today's walk.

The day started out very cool, and just a little foggy, but a very pleasant day for walking. We are now in Galicia, and it is more green and partly forested here than in most of the previous locations. And, there are many of what appears to be smaller farms. The farms along the meseta seemed quite large, which is probably typical of wheat and other grain farms. The farms here seem to be vegetable and fruit farms, when some cattle and occasional goats. Not as many sheep here as earlier.

A Galician Camino way marker just outside Sarria, the indicator says 113.246 kilometers to Santiago. With three decimal places, they are measuring down to the meter. One wonders how they can be so accurate and what that means exactly. does it mean that for 113.246 kilometers, that is the center of the path exactly, and to what point in Santiago? Many questions come up when walking the Camino, and in the morning, I typically walk alone, and that means I think about these things...

Parts of the path in the morning were lined with these stone walls. These are stacked stones - no mortar or anything holding the walls together other than carefully fitted stones. Later in the morning, we saw a man rebuilding part of a wall, and he was just carefully stacking the stones.

Often today, the path went into forested areas. This shade would be good in the summer when it is hot; today it was just a little cool, and the shaded parts are more likely to have mud. There was plenty of mud today. We were going uphill for the first 15 kilometers to a peak, then the last 7 or so kilometers were pretty much downhill with a few quite steep sections.

Here I am at the marker that says 99.930 kilometers to Santiago. We are now under 100 kilometers! Yay!

And after much downhill (and more to come), we can see Portomarín in the distance.

I think the name comes from Portomarín being a port on a very large lake. Here is a bit of the lake. It goes as far as you can see in both directions from the long bridge we walked across.

Once over the bridge, we have to climb up the old city steps into the old city. Many old cities were built on hills to be easier to defend. For those of us walking, that means climbing into the city, something we do for many of the towns.

That was Al from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada starting up the steps in the previous picture, and here he is at the supermercado stocking up on supplies for a picnic lunch before heading off to get to another town this afternoon. He and I had a good time walking the last part of the day together.

After a shower, I went back into town to explore a bit. A Frenchman, Mark, who I have seen before a few times, took my picture at this statue of a pilgrim pointing the way to Santiago. 

his is the church in Portomarín, an example of what I believe is considered the Moorish style: very plain and basic inside and out.

And here is a photograph of the interior alter area of the church. As is typical, for a town of a population 2000, this is a large church. And this is not the only church in town, there is one more I was not able to get to.

Here are my friends Matt, Rachel, Lauren, and Doug. If I have it right, Doug is Rachel's father, and Lauren is Rachel's friend, and today was Lauren's birthday! Happy Birthday, Lauren! Matt is a cousin to Doug, and we highly suspect he is a Boston Red Sox fan. This group started their Camino today in Sarria. I walked with them for part of the morning, and kept going when they stopped for a break. It was good to see them again in town. I hope I see them on the road tomorrow. 

Another good day on the Camino de Santiago.

Next: Uphill (gradually) to Palas De Rei