2022 Sunday, Sept. 18

Santarem to Golega

We’ve enjoyed morning cloud cover for the past few days giving a bit of respite from the heat. Not so today—sun and clear skies. Since we walked part of the stage on our “rest” day, we took a taxi to the exact spot where we ended yesterday. By the end of the day, it was 95 degrees!

Today’s hike 13.44 miles; total for the day, 15.0 miles.

Click the link to get today’s video: https://www.relive.cc/view/vxOQ4B2GN2v. As always, close out of the window to return to the rest of the photos.

sunflowers
Today we saw our first fields of sunflowers, something we often saw on the Camino Frances through Spain.
rubber tree
We also passed by cork trees, but they seemed not to be planted in an organized manner, just random trees here and there. Cork is an important crop for Portugal and tourist shops are full of cork purses.
Richard on a puddle-filled road
Much of the morning’s walk was along farm roads with lots of potholes. Since it was Sunday, we also shared the paths with harvest vehicles and motorbike drivers who made for even more mud.
workers haresting red peppers
Workers pouring their hand-picked red peppers into the basket.
red peppers being dumped into a container
Baskets of peppers are then transferred into larger bins.
Heinz and Dagmar from Nuremberg bicycling the Camino
As we approached our first town, we were passed by about 20-25 bicyclists who wished us “Bom Caminho.” They we’re having a short break when we passed into the town, and they explained that they were all from different locations in Germany but are doing the Camino by bicycle. Richard talked to Heinz and Dagmar from Nuremberg.
Azinhaga's Nobel laureate in literature, José Saramago in stone with Richard
One “cool off” spot was Azinhaga, a town proud of its 1998 Nobel laureate in literature, José Saramago.
bedroom of our luxurious Golega accomodation
We finally reached the hotel that was real luxury! Good air conditioning, a canopy bed, and a bathroom larger than some of the rooms where we stayed. The only disappointment was that the restaurant was closed for the evening. But that proved to be a bit of a blessing.
Golega restaurant feast for Jan and Richard
We wanted an earlier dinner (most kitchens open at 7:30 pm) limiting our choices. We tried to translate the chalkboard menu but had no luck. The wait staff had virtually no English and we have only a few words of Portuguese. Finally we settled on something sounding good (shrimp, pork tenderloin) and translated that simple word. The waiter thumbed through his phone so we could see pictures, and we selected two dishes. With the wine and water, that’s all we ordered. However, as Rick Steves has said, restaurants will bring out other dishes and you can wave them off if you don’t want them. We decided to see what they thought we might enjoy, and happily had a very nice meal comparatively cheaper than at home. Richard enjoyed the bullfight videos playing on tv, it was fun to see all the older gentlemen getting together at the bar, and we also had fun.

Comments:

Jim Constantin: It appears that You guys are wearing compression socks?? Do they help? Jim 2022/09/20

Reply: Hard to tell, but the hiking is tough on our legs. So many other health benefits, though. 2022/09/21