Camino de Santiago Portuguese - Day 10

Daily Overview

• Summary of the Day: I’m lying here in our room at the Hotel Padre Cruz just on the outskirts of Sao Pedro da Torre. It’s a small town several kilometers south of Valenca, and it is just pouring outside. About an hour after we got here, the rain and wind came with a fury. I’m very glad we didn’t have to walk in that. We’re centering our plans around Jonathan’s arrival tomorrow, so we did a shorter walk today, only six miles, which actually turned into 7 1/2. It started raining briefly, and we took shelter under a railroad trestle bridge to put our rain gear. At that point, we discovered I didn’t have the address for the hotel right in my GPS, and we had ended up walking more than a mile out of our way We were thankful we didn’t go further than we did.

  This was a good food day. The hostel we stayed at last night provided breakfast this morning, and that was so wonderful. We had fruit and bread and cheese and yogurt, muesli, cereal, and juice. We even made ourselves a couple of sandwiches to eat later. The place we are staying tonight has a small restaurant just for guests, and that was equally good. We had Lasagna, salad, and bread. We were very thankful for a nice meal here since other food sources would have been some distance away. On the way walking today, we ran into a group of six pilgrims. Half were Polish and the other half Italian. Their guide said they would be walking to Santiago, arriving next Saturday. That means they are walking a minimum of fifteen miles a day every day this week. Not for the faint of heart.

  Tomorrow we’ll be walking a short distance to Valenca where Jon will be coming in, and Monday all three of us will be crossing over into Spain headed towards the environs of O Porrino, twenty km north.

  
  

• What we planned to do: 

  Today we planned to walk a shorter distance from Vila Nova de Cerviera (only six miles) and end up in São Pedro da Torre. Both of these places are not far from Tui, which is the last starting point to begin if you want to get your Compostela. We will meet my son Jonathan in Valenca tomorrow, a short distance from Tui.

The Day's Focus

• Topic: When the path changes, trust in the providence of God that he is still guiding you even when you might be going in the wrong direction.

• Word for the Day: Faithful

• Scripture: ."The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." - Lamentations 3:22-23

• Spiritual Practice: When you face an unexpected difficulty or wrong turn, intentionally pray a short, simple prayer of trust, such as, "Lord, I trust You to guide me even when I'm lost."

Moments and Images

• Images from the Way Today: 

  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  
  

• Beautiful Spot of the Day: 

  

  I know this might seem strange, but almost every cemetery I have seen in this country looks like its own little city, beautifully decorated in memory of the people resting there. I’ve never seen the dead so honored.

  
  

• What Church We Saw:

  

  Sadly, this church wasn’t open and didn’t have bathrooms for pilgrims or water for them, but it did have security video cameras outside.

• People we experienced: we met three ladies from the States who were walking. Two of them had been traveling as companions, and the other lady became part of their group along the way. It’s one of the characteristics of the Camino that complete strangers traveling the Camino often become family.

• Unexpected Surprises: 

  I was working on my blog post in the hostel lounge last night, and there was a guy there intently watching Sumo Wrestling on television. He was rewinding different matches to watch them again. Who knew?

• Animal/Nature or local life:

  

  The beauty and abundance of the flowers here this late in the fall is amazing.

Reflections and Learnings

• Reflections from Today: Why have we turned performance into a measure for progress when you can go the distance in anything without getting the full benefit of what was waiting for you there?

• "Well, that was hard." I used the street address of the place we were going to stay today instead of the actual address of the venue itself, and we ended up walking a mile plus out of our way.

• "What helped me today": An encouraging WhatsApp message from our friend Gene to stay on course. I think he was monitoring our GPS.

• "Something I learned": We stayed in a former youth hostel last night, and the only way to get the lights to come on in the room was to stick your key card in a slot in the wall. What in the world?

• "Insight for the day": 

  Even when you get off track, there are benefits there that have value for you later when you are going the right way.

• "Mystical occurrences": If it hadn’t started raining when it did, we wouldn’t have stopped to reorient ourselves and realize we were off track.

Daily Conclusion

• A View of Our Compostela to date:

  
  

  

• Gratitudes (1–3 things I'm thankful for):

  A real hot breakfast with muesli

  Getting to our place to stay before a major wind and rain storm

  Having a place to eat dinner where we are staying