Welcome back, dear reader. You now rejoin the ongoing saga of a much relieved pilgrim — a man who has survived the day he feared most with hips still attached and spirits remarkably intact.
Yes, today was the one — the 22-kilometre gauntlet, the Everest of this pilgrimage (minus the altitude and the snow, but plus the sun and suspicious industrial smells). With my arthritic hips and David’s melodramatic knees, we were both poised for what we imagined would be a cross between Chariots of Fire and an orthopaedic infomercial.
We woke early — by which I mean before the coffee had brewed itself properly, which, in Spain, is practically a violation of the Geneva Convention — and we brought our backpacks downstairs for transfer. We received our first stamp in the all-important pilgrim credential, which confirms not only our movement through time and space, but also (eventually) that we haven’t just been bar-hopping through Galicia pretending to be spiritual.
Then upstairs for breakfast, and dear friends, let me say: if heaven has a buffet, it likely resembles this one. Fresh fruits, wheels of cheese, aged meats that smelled like the Holy Spirit might have blessed them individually, thick yoghurt, orange juice squeezed by angels, and coffee that I suspect came directly from the Eternal Roast.
Suitably fortified, we set off.
A few kilometres in, a local man waved us over to what can only be described as a tiny café birthed from a garage, run by his family. There were chairs, coffee, and—you guessed it — a second stamp. We, of course, stopped. Because one does not simply pass by good coffee in Spain. Nor does one pass up a stamp when one’s knees might revolt before the next one.
A few more kilometres on, deep in a forest, we encountered a Guardia Civil car parked under the trees — its two officers standing with expressions of profound seriousness and… a stamp. One imagines their law enforcement briefing that morning:
“Men, your mission today: stand quietly among the pines and validate passports for the weary.”
Naturally, we obliged. It’s not every day you get officially endorsed by the Spanish police and the Catholic Church within the same morning.
But it was the sound just beyond that checkpoint that moved me most. From deep within the trees, like the haunting call of my ancestors, I heard… bagpipes. Yes, bagpipes, here in southern Spain. David glanced at me and quipped, “Even here, you Scots need to be piped in!” And sure enough, there was a piper in full regalia playing Scotland the Brave, looking only slightly sunburnt and entirely proud. And yes—he had a stamp too. (And a tip jar. Which is just sensible theology.)
At this point, we had stopped counting kilometres, partly because we didn’t want to know, and partly because I’d left my Apple Watch at home, which has proven to be both spiritually enlightening and wildly inconvenient.
Eventually, we came to a fork in the trail — and like all good biblical metaphors, we had a choice. To the left: the routa alternativa — 6.55 km of forested path, shady and scenic. To the right: the “Area Industrial” — 1.1 km shorter, and paved. I consulted a group of young Spanish women walking near us. “Nature,” they said wisely, “is beautiful.”
But our aging joints had already voted. Expedience won. And thus, dear reader, we entered the industrial park — a sacred labyrinth of cement, heat, and exactly zero trees.
As the sun baked us like communion wafers left on a dashboard, I said to David, “The moment we see a café, we stop.” Which would have been a fine plan — had there been any cafés. But alas, industrial parks, like vestry meetings, are designed for work, not refreshment.
Eventually, just as we were about to surrender ourselves to the pavement, we emerged, hobbling, into O Porriño, having clocked in at over 20 kilometres. And there, like a vision of the promised land, stood a restaurant offering cerveza, vino y tapas.
We sat. We sipped. We sighed.
David looked over his beer and said with deep sincerity,
“This now holds the record for the longest I’ve ever walked to get a beer.”
We still had 2 km to go to reach our hotel, but after 20, what’s another two? A cool-down lap. A postlude to the liturgy.
So I’ll leave you here, dear reader, glass in hand, sipping what may well be the tastiest glass of Albariño I’ve ever had — and preparing for the last bit of today’s journey.
There may yet be more to this story. But first: lunch. Then a nap. And maybe… a hymn of thanksgiving.