Distance travelled today: 17 miles on foot
Day 6: Rubiães to Tui
The Albergue at Rubiães was OK but we did have a bit of bad luck with our laundry. I put some dirty clothes in to wash before we left to eat and, when we returned, we found the display flashing 'out of order'. We were left with a mess of unwashed, sodden clothes which we had to hang up to drip dry.
Of course, they weren't dry in the morning so we had to hang as many as we could off our packs and stick the rest in a carrier bag (the drier wasnt working either).
It hadn't been a great night's sleep either; the dorm was full, with 24 people making the noises and smells that sleeping people make - until 5.30am that is, when they all started to get up and go, leaving us with two hours of peace.
On a more positive note, we both felt that our feet were less sore, so left with a bit of a spring in our step. We also came across a cafe-cum-convenience store not far down the road and enjoyed freshly squeezed orange juice, a coffee and a sandwich, giving us just the energy boost we needed.
As we have now come to expect, we soon rejoined the cobbled path that has come to define the 'Camino de Santiago Way'.
We relaxed into the walk, which took us through woodland paths running in tandem with freshwater streams, and fields strewn with flowers. We crossed two ancient roman bridges, passing over fast-running rivers with water as clear as glass, and stopped to look at the waterfalls, chapels and stone crosses along the way.
After an initial short climb, the path was mostly downhill, sometimes steep, but more often gently rolling downwards. Eventually we began to pass more and more houses, and then larger buildings as we entered Valença, the most northern part of Portugal on the south side of the River Minho. We followed the yellow arrows past the ruined fortifications (very similar in style to the ones we saw at Neuf-Brisach in France last year), through the pretty old town, slowing down to browse in the shops and longing to stop at one of the street cafes.
But Spain was beckoning, so we made our way down the narrow streets to the Tui International Bridge, a strange, metal, latticed structure flying across the River Minho to join two countries - one foot in Portugal and the other in Spain.
The bridge's clever design allows cars to travel through the central hollow and trains to travel on top, with footpaths for pedestrians along each side. We chose the right hand walkway (as recommended by Mary, a fellow walker from California), and enjoyed views of the cathedral and Old Town of Tui as we entered Spain.
That should have been that - find the albergue, eat, sleep, repeat - but life's not like that is it.
We went out and had a lovely meal - tapas and a nice bottle of wine - arriving back at the albergue 55 minutes before locked doors (they are very strict about these things).
Except we hadn't realised that the time zone had changed, and we were actually 5 minutes late. The door was locked, and despite banging on the door and shouting, no-one answered; all our stuff was inside, including our phones charging.
We then spent a frantic half an hour trying to explain what had happened and ask for help, to anyone who would listen, but it was getting late and nobody spoke English. Eventually, I managed to communicate (in Portuguese) with a Spanish lady called 'America' (that's not a typo) closing up her café. She was an angel; phoning around the hostels until she found one with beds and then arranging for the owner to meet us there and even showing us where to go.
Once gratefully settled, we managed to grab a few hours rest before returning to collect our belongings from our original lodgings.
What an evening! Chocolates ordered and on the way to America.
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