O Caminho Pedregoso - Day 8

The Stony Path

Alvaiázere - Rabaçal (20.5 miles) 

The road to Rabaçal was long and hot. I got off to a late start because it felt so nice sleeping in my own room for once. I also had a breakfast of cereal, toast with fruit jam, and orange juice before leaving the albergue. I spent a good portion of the day walking with Yeji and Xenia. It is nice having someone to talk with on these long days. Although, they both stopped in Alvorge and I continued on until Coimbra. Today's path was surrounded by stony outcrops and often lined with stone walls. This region is called the Terra de Sicó and is known for it's limestone, oak trees, and olive groves. I noticed several places where it looked like limestone quarries existed.

It is also time to harvest olives. In several places, there were families laying out green tarps under their olive trees. A device was then reached up to the branches to shake the ripe olives loose. There were also many people out pruning their olive trees today.

As for the oaks, I have seen acorns scattered all around the trail. I'm not too sure they do much with them. Portugal is also the world's leading producer of cork. The trees around here have had their bark peeled away near the base, exposing a red layer underneath. They harvest the cork from the bark every 9-10 years and the trees are marked with numbers to help keep track of the years.

Ansião was a nice and newer town to pass through and was one of the last places I saw Ilaria, Yeji and Xenia. We had stopped for stamps at the tourism office and lunch at a café. There was also a reindeer and sewing machine decorations just outside of Ansião.

The rest of the walk was challenging and hot. The landscape opened up and it felt more like the Mojave desert than any other place I have walked this trip. There was a random shrine outside of Rabaçal that is identified as the wayside shrine in my guidebook. The arrows took me all the way out to that point when there was a shorter route into Rabaçal.

I was extremely thirsty and sore by the time I arrived at the "O Bonito" albergue. Christian and Mattias were already there, as well as a whole new group of pilgrims. I met women from Belgium, New Zealand, and Wisconsin. There was also a man from Brazil, and an older couple from France. Adrie from Hungary arrived later and we all ate a two course meal at the "O Bonito" café next door. My dinner consisted of a vegetable soup first, followed by a plate of potatoes, rice, salad, and a grilled quarter chicken. Very good food after a hard day!

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