Today has been one of the longest days of my life.
Last night I was sleeping in the same room with a German who went to the toilet every half-hour and a drunk-as-fuck guy who arrived at 2 AM and started snoring like a bastard. It sounded as if he was dying, but he wasn’t, because he woke up at one point, pranced around the room and asked where the door was, so I opened the door for him. No jokes, the devil literally couldn’t find the door in a small room. So I set off from Tuí, the Spanish border town (on the other side of the border in Portugal is Valença) at 6 AM, walked to O Porriño, met a jolly Mexican lady who brightened my gloomy morning a bit. Continued out of the town, joined a couple of Australians - quite rude bitches, to be honest. “I’m wealthy so I’m better than everybody else” vibes - and a Scottish girl until Mos. Talked to a local Spanish lady in Mos. She was nice but gave off a certain “village loony” vibe. Went a-walkin’ again, caught a Portuguese girl and her mother on the way, both extremely beautiful and nice, and living in Porto where I started my journey. Talked to them for a bit, highlight of the day, then hurried on ahead not to bother them. Soon it started raining cats and dogs, really pouring down, and I caught up with the Australian duo and the Scottish lass again, joined them till Redondela where I took a hotel. Over 30 kilometers, today’s stretch. Backpack wet all the way through, took out my stuff, dried them. Asked a pair of older British women to help me use the drying machine, which they did, but also didn’t forget to add: “It’s not that difficult, really.” Ever so smug, the Brits and Aussies. Will try to pack waterproof tomorrow, there’s more rain to come.
Rested at the hotel for a bit, then went out to have dinner. Authentic Spanish restaurant was full, resorted to a pizza place instead. Food was good but the service was strange. The place was completely empty when I walked in, yet they made me sit at the worst damn table “cAUse YoUre jUst oNe pErSoN”. I swear the lady there had an “I’m gonna screw over your already long and tiring day” attitude about her. While I was eating, some strangely fashionable people appeared at the place to have a drink. I didn’t pay much attention. At the same time, it sounded like a soundcheck for a concert was happening right outside. I finished eating and went to hang out near the stage that had been put up. Soon enough, the curtain was raised and the concert began. The same fashionable people from the pizza place, now in complete stage uniform! What followed was at least 2.5 hours of non-stop Spanish dance music. They barely caught a breath in between, most of the time the songs seamlessly flowed into each other and they kept dancing and dancing. Ridiculous amount of energy. The women with their hip-moving looked incredibly sexy and the men, well, they were impressive too. I would never deliberately go to see something like this but it was perfect spontaneous entertainment to end this day. I left exactly at midnight, had a beer at a bar, and walked to my hotel. The concert continued until 00:30 at least, it’s 01:20 as I’m writing this. Tomorrow will be the seventh day of walking. I’m going to be in Santiago de Compostela on the tenth day, or the ninth if I’m willing to walk 30 km for days seven through nine. We’ll see, it works out either way.
Inspiring to some, boring and cringeworthy to most.
