Portugués Camino Day 15: The Path of Stone and Water

DAY 15 ARMENTEIRA – RIBADUMIA, 7.38 miles 17999 steps.

Even as we walked today, I wondered how on Earth I would be able to write about the beauty of this walk. The answer: lots of pictures. 

Suzanne and I Sleep Sabbbathed again, and then stuffed ourselves silly on another amazing breakfast buffet before reluctantly leaving the hotel at 11am. Our hotel, the Pousada de Armenteira, is hard to describe. Publicity calls it a stunning example of contemporary Galician architecture, but to us it feels right out of the 1960s, what Suzanne calls Frank Lloyd Wright meets concrete:  rectangular sections at times parallel and at times offset and interesting, and abundant wood and concrete. Al large hotel for only 27 rooms. It was easy to stay the day indoors in the rain yesterday.

But first, the hidden bathtub

Most fun I think is the bathtub–which I was certain our room didn’t have–until I was washing clothes and wondered what does that latch go to? The shower floor pulls up to reveal A SUNKEN BATHTUB. Did the hotel staff purposely not tell us about this so that we could discover it ourselves?

Surprise! There is a sunken bathtub hidden beneath the shower floor.

The Path of Stone and Water

Today, we walk the Path of Stone and Water, which follows the small Armenteira River downstream when it once powered a series of some 50 sawmills and gristmills that continued to function until the 1930s. Tall trees above us, dense vegetation alongside us, we walk in dark shade by moss-covered stone structures from a time before concrete and steel.  Built of stone and powered by water, viaducts crisscross from mill to mill. As an engineer’s son, I must trace the cascading choreography of water and stone, trying to understand their workings. 

We can’t be but enchanted by the ethereal beauty of these moss-covered working ruins. Few pilgrims are seen; it’s mostly people with dogs, families, and young couples taking their Sunday stroll upstream. 

I think back to a discussion I had with our daughter Anna while traveling around northeast Ghana in 2010.  We had seen so many human-made attractions with some cultural significance or highlighted human ingenuity, like churches, shrines, or palaces, but they felt empty, without a soul.  Planning our last few days, Anna commented that she wished we could see something more natural.  We talked about forests and waterfalls, something not manmade, and that is how we ended up going to Bongo Rock. Northeastern Ghana didn’t have much else that was both interesting and natural, but the conversation stuck with me. Today’s primeval forest highlights both nature and the human-made losing ground as the forest slowly reclaims it.  Nature always wins, I think. 

Into the woods we go

Through this door sits a millstone.

Steve & Suzanne on the Path of Water & Stone

It was the most beautiful part of our Camino, and we felt transported back in time. Leaving it, we’re a bit sad to to return to the present day, a mundane urban landscape where concrete and steel pave the way back to the same river, but now lined with vineyards, their young bright sour green grapes ripening. The idyllic landscape is gone.

I think about this being the final third of this Camino. “The first part of the Camino strengthens the body,” I learned at a Hippy-Buddhist albergue on my first Camino. “The middle Camino stills the mind; from here to Santiago, it is for the soul.” Will we be ready to hear what Santiago says to our soul? I discussed our whys earlier in Day 0: Return to Santiago.  For me, it was about my relationship with work now that I’m turning 65 next mont; that, and finally addressing the staleness I feel in my relationship with God. For Suzanne, it was going on this Camino thing after listening to Steve go on and on about it for seven years, also wondering what this next season of life and ministry might hold for us, and finally, what would long hours of unstructured time alone with God actually be like?

I think we’ve been pretty careful not to come to any conclusions thus far, but now, with bodies strong and minds stilled, will we actually hear a word from the LORD? And how will it come to us?

This mighty European Stag Beetle was fun to mess with. 

It is just a Reality Hangover

The rest of the walk turns out to be a bit of a letdown. We are staying off the Camino route, which wasn’t ideal; the hotel is underwhelming, and tonight’s pizza left much to be desired. As for a good night’s sleep, there is the final night of a festival outside our window. Are things really this bad, or am I just coming off two days in a four-star hotel with the most beautiful walk through an enchanted forest? Maybe it’s a Reality Hangover.  

Shadows and Feet of Day 15