Just before we started Chrissy spotted a church, high up on a lonely mountain, and suggested we should go up there. Yeah, right! We started by following the shoreline east but were cut off by the installations of the port of Vigo, which kept bumping us farther and farther away from the shore, up steeper and steeper slopes, until at the end we ended in Monte de Guía, precisely the lonely mountain that we had snorted at. The view was magnificent, and I took the opportunity to pontificate about what a ría was (a fluvial valley that has been flooded by the ocean because the land subsided) and how this type of coast with many such embayments is called a ria coast.
Down from our high overview, on the land side, we navigated through a series of small streets until we reached an old railroad track that has been filled with compacted DG (that is geotechnical speech for "Decomposed Granite sand"), and had a very comfortable ride for about 5 km down the very gentle incline, just before we once again took to the hills, high over the ría. It was a tough but exhilarating bike ride, with very steep grades and long stretches of off-road biking. A true adventure crossing through a luscious forest. Lots of peregrinos happily walking in the cool of the morning.
Eventually we reached the town of Redondela, in time for our elevenses. Tita and I had tortilla Española, which was good but not as good as the one I make at home (the potatoes were sliced too thick and overcooked, it didn't have enough onion, and had little or no nutmeg). Chrissy, who has a sweet tooth, ordered an empanada de choco, tricked by the false cognate, and was surprised to find that the little black morsels were of squid rather than chocolate!
Back on the road we decided to abandon the yellow arrows of El Camino, which were pointing toward a steep and narrow valley with a muddy trail, but my sense of orientation worked rather well and I found a delightful path along the shore of the ría where Chrissy had a field day, stopping every 10 meters to take a picture. I could have had to end this blog in this idyllic note, but Chrissy gave me a whole lot of new material by her innate ability to be a Space Cadet. All along in this trip we have tried to get used to the fact that she will lag behind, with the sisterly support of Margarita, who often waits patiently for her. Raimund, a nice guy that he is, often waits at intersections where there could be a question of whether to turn left or right, and I have taken the position of pathfinder. Well, on this unlucky day, we were going along, and within the last 100 meters of the last Chrissy sighting, Raimund and I emerged unto the main highway, and confidently awaited there for the womenfolk. Wait, and wait, and wait. Where were they? Looking back over a couple of bends there was no one on sight, so Raimund got on the phone to Chrissy, and found they were lost. What? How can you get lost in 100 m? Yes, somehow they had turned into someone's driveway and followed it down back to the ría shore. Well, no big deal, just turn around and go up the slope until you reach the highway. Half an hour later they had not appeared. And here the versions differ: I am pretty sure that as Lead Space Cadet, Chrissy tried to use her inexistent sense of direction to find an alternate way to Pontevedra, and just managed to get them lost into the forest. They found an old woman who told them they were going in the wrong direction and had to go back, but conveniently neither of them understood her and they kept getting deeper and deeper into the forest. Raimund called Chrissy one more time, and got a sharp retort about how they would meet us in Pontevedra, 10 km away. She claimed Google Maps had gone crazy, both for her and for Tita, but "she could find her way out" just as easy as if she were finding her way out of a paper bag. OK, so be it, Raimund and I forged ahead, got to our lodgings, and given that it was getting late went for our dinner. Curiously we ended in the restaurant of a Portuguese chef, so Raimond got a francesinha and I got the most delicious arroz con pulpo (soupy rice with big hunks of octopus), liberally irrigated with several glasses of vinho verde. Just as we were ending our delicious dinner the waiter came to tell us that the girls had arrived. Oh, good (burp), so we don't have to go looking for them.
The girls were kind of short describing their adventure. According to them we had purposefully taken them to the middle of the forest, like a modern Hansel and Gretel, and abandoned them there to their own devices. They had wandered aimlessly, under the spell of an old hag (with a long beaky nose and a big wart on it) who had disabled their Google Maps, and who with a crooked finger had directed them through a long passage, right under the freeway, to an old gingerbread house. It was only through resourcefulness and determination that they had managed to escape, and crashing through thornbushes reach the highway and bike down to safety.
After the adventure we had a very pleasant afternoon in Pontevedra, which is a very handsome old city, full of life. The cafés were full, music was playing, and the sun was shining. Mind you, at this point in the mid-afternoon there was no place the gals could get something to eat, because supper is not served until 8 pm, when the Spaniards are just beginning to wake up. For the rest of the night, and until 5 am, the sound outside my window told me that there were many revelers out on the street, enjoying la marcha (a type of bar hopping that is world famous).
On a more serious note,
we are all finding that El Camino is an experience in self-reliance and
problem-solving, greatly aided by the support of your fellow pilgrims, trust,
faith, and the occasional turbo boost of your e-bike. May the lesson stay long
with us.
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