Stapleton Travel Blog

Interesting night at the albergue last night. 16 of us in the bunk room, 1 camping in the garden and another sleeping on a cot in the kitchen.

Most of these peregrinos will be moving onto 32K walk to Santarem tomorrow so this may be the last time we see them since we are not ready for those big walks yet. Still working through foot issues.

The bunk mates included Craig(Scotland), Andy(UK), Owen & Dan (Ireland & UK), Leon (Germany) , a few French guys walking around in their underwear (come on man put some clothes on!), and then right at the end we got swamped by our remaining bunk mates – a group of Portuguese peregrinos headed to Fatima (the yellow jackets).

We had a goodbye dinner with Craig and Andy. Andy is on his first Camino and has a 45 pound backpack with a tent, stove, multiple changes of clothes…..Insane. He is going to ship stuff home once he gets to Santarem.

We are taking a short 13 K walk today to Valada since the accommodations on this stretch are very limited. Having lunch next to the river. Nice

Staying at Dois Caminho albergue that sleeps 7. Beth and I are in a private room with a bunk bed. They even had a washing machine. Feels like luxury.

Andy (UK) is one of the peregrinos here. He is mailing stuff back to lighten up his backpack.

We went back to the river cafe with Andy and end up meeting some Irish couples that were hysterical. Looking forward to another 20K walk.

The day after that we have to put our “big boy” pants on and do a 25.5 K walk in the heat. Ugh.

Bom Caminho

Leaving VFdX as the sun was coming up was pretty. Its one of the nicest towns around so far.

The walk today was another almost 20K. The weather gets hot fast here. We walked mostly on either side of the railroad. By the time we finished and had lunch the temperature had reached 91 degrees.

Our albergue in Azambuja was right on the street that they will have their “running of the bulls” in a couple weeks. So cool seeing all the preparations they need to make. These 20K walks should not be that hard but the hot weather does a number on your feet. Spirits still high and tomorrow is a short day for us. The rest of the people we met will be going for a longer 33K walk which we are not ready for yet.

Earlier start today and only 19K. We started the day walking with Daniel (Germany) and later Craig (Scotland) caught up to us.

Uneventful walking day. Nice walks along the river. Also walking on the shoulder of the highway for awhile (not so nice). There was a large group (over 75) of pilgrims with support vans headed to Fatima which is on the same Camino as the Camino Portuguese for the first 4 days then they go west.

Once in VFdX we relaxed on a quiet street with a few beers then lunch. We got to try francesinho which is a common dish in Portugal. Pork on toast covered in cheese and topped with a fried egg.

Tomorrow is more of the same but Beth is nursing her first toe blisters right now. Hopefully they will be better by tomorrow.

Didn’t get much sleep last night. Too anxious about starting the walk. We left around 08:00 and then found ourselves still out on the Camino past 15:00. It topped out at 85 degrees today with almost no shade.

The albergue we are staying in sleeps 10. No sheets, no pillow, no blankets…. no problem. Couldn’t walk further today. We met one of our roomates Craig from Scotland/London. Nice guy….. but aren’t all Scottish nice?

There is no Wi-Fi at the albergue so we are at a cafe nearby with spotty service so the blog will be brief today. Also there is a local guy at the cafe talking so loud it feels like my head is splitting open.

Talk to you tomorrow, hopefully better Wi-Fi and less screaming at the cafes…..Follow the yellow arrow.

Took the 12E tram today to the Castle stop. As we walked up the hill just before the castle is a public urinal which is a metal screen where you just pee into a drain. This is wrong on so many levels and no I did not use it…..yet

We walked down a bit to the Miradouro Santa Luzia lookout for some nice views.

Headed further down to the Lisbon Cathedral to get our first stamp on our “Credencial del Peregrino”. We start from here tomorrow. Shouldn’t be too hard, just follow the yellow arrows, right?

We took the 28E tram to Campo Orique to have a meal at the food market. Turns out that Lisbon was playing Porto in football and everyone was hanging out. Cool.

When we got back to the plaza outside the hotel. I asked a guy if we can share the table he was at and we spent the next hour and half talking to Ricardo who is a doctor in Lisbon. Great evening, great conversation. He would like to visit NY someday so Beth shared her Instagram account with him and said he is welcome anytime.

Hope tomorrow goes well. Good night.

We made it to our hotel using the Metro from the airport. Very easy and got to check in early. Grabbed a quick bite as the 1930 28 tram rode by then got a 2 hour nap. So tired.

Went for a walk before heading to our traditional Portuguese dinner at A Provencia. Cobblestone sidewalks everywhere. So cool.

We walked by a Tourist attraction which is an elevator from the 1900s that would take you up 7 stories rather than having to walk up the hill.

Got to try “Green wine”. It’s a thing. More like a spritzer. Nearby, there were 15 guys celebrating a bachelor party in the plaza. The groom was dressed in a full wedding gown and vail. So funny. Regret not taking a picture.

There are many pastries we want to try while here. I tried a coconut bread cake. Not bad. When we got back to our hotel we had 2 Pasteis da Nata (popular custard tart) waiting for us in our room. Damn good.

Dinner at a traditional Portuguese restaurant down a hidden street. Momma cooks, Dad works the bar etc and the daughter is the only waitress. Crazy. The allure is that there is always a line outside waiting to get in.

I got to try the sardines (good) and Beth had bacalhau/ cod fish (not so good…sorry Momma)

The whole place is decorated by homemade clocks that the dad made…..none of which had the correct time but are hysterical to look at.

Good night.

Almost 6 years since our last Camino. We decided it’s time to try the Camino Portuguese from Lisbon, Portugal to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Hopefully, our older bodies can handle this. We are a little undertrained right now and will be going slow the first week.

We’ve decided to go lighter than we did 6 years ago. Our backpacks are 15 an 14 pounds with water as opposed to 19 and 16 pounds that we carried on the Camino Frances.

Wish us luck. We start walking Sunday after spending a couple days in Lisbon.

We shuttled to Da Nang airport and flew into Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). This was a big bustling city (reminded me of Kuala Lumpur back in 1979). We did a short walking tour and finished at a pub for a flight of craft beers.

Since we are leaving early, we all decided to go out to dinner together on our final night. Surprisingly, table for 14 is not so easy.

Crossing the street here is a bit unnerving as most times you need to walk into traffic to cross.

Afterward Beth and I visited “Little Malaysia” for some “roti canai”. At this point we found out our return flight out of Hong Kong no longer exists. United Airlines never notified us either. So now we need to return from Hong Kong with a 2 hour layover in Tokyo on our way back to Newark (ugh).

Today we went to the Hoi An Eco Cooking Class. They took us to the market and then we shuttled over the river by a circle bamboo boat. There were a bunch of tourists doing this class with us as well.

We spent a lot of time there cooking many dishes. Each of us got a chance to make the rice paper used for the spring rolls which was interesting.

Today we make another big climb up the famous (really, I’m not kidding) Hai Van Pass. Six miles up and six miles down.

Although we’ve done bigger climbs, we all knew this would be our last big day and yes it rained again today.

After the climb we continued onto backroads to the Elephant Valley to finish the day (35 miles 2800 ft of elevation)

We shuttled to Hoi An which is a small walkable city but unfortunately very touristy.

Our fight to Hong Kong was cancelled by Vietnam Airlines. They only fly every other day now to Hong Kong so we need to leave a day early now (ugh).

As we were checking in to our rooms at the Vinh Hung Emerald resort, our Aussie friends shouted out to the guy showing us our rooms “Hey there is a rat in our room”, Elena (CA) said her room had mosquitos in her bathroom ….I’ll be sleeping with one eye open tonight.

Tomorrow will be a rest day in Hoi An.