Day 9: Baioni to Vigo (18 miles)

Walking the Camino

Well, we had an interesting beginning of the day. Blame the 7am sunrise start. We realized about 10 mins out that we had left protein yogurt shakes in the fridge at the hostel. That was supposed to be our power up for a big walk day. We were bummed.

Then, about an hour and a half out, Jessica wondered if she had left a piece of clothing hanging in the bathroom. The good news is we figured out she hadn't done that. The bad news is we realized we both had, in fact, left several pieces of clothes hanging on an outdoor rack. After some quick calculations we concluded we still had what we needed, barely. So we pressed on.

The Coastal Route went a bit inland today, with 600 meters of elevation. We chose instead to take the Litoral Route, which hugs the coastline. Litoral means coastal in Spanish and Portuguese. Go figure. This was about knee joint preservation.

We've developed a couple of maxims over the past few days, life lessons from experiences on the trail.

One is Christina's Paradox. Do you remember Christina? She's the woman from Germany who decided to keep walking along a coastal road even though the Camino arrows pointed up to join the main road above. She made a choice based on what looked like a better alternative, but turned out to be a dead end.

We fell into a Christina's Paradox situation today, in fact. We decided to try a very inviting path down to the shore to walk along this amazing beach, parallel to the Camino path. But we ran into a waterway that cut across the beach and had to turn around. That, my friends, is a classic Christina's Paradox.

Then there's Natalie's Folly. Natalie, you may remember, is the sweet and spunky 9-year old walking with her mom. She's all full of energy, can be easily distracted, and is ready to do anything. Lauren, Natalie's mom, was all too happy to indulge Natalie’s desire to explore every path and curiosity along the way. I’m sure that led to some wonderful moments. But on this day, they took so many side trips that they ran out of water, food, and energy. They had to take an Uber to make it to the hostel. The very long and difficult day left Lauren wondering if they were able to do this at all.

Natalie's Folly is just over the horizon of curiosity and ability. We too wanted to be playful and flexible, to explore the hidden paths. And we did. But there’s also the need to keep a pulse on the day, the mileage, the feet, food, and other pragmatic considerations that need to be satisfied in order to keep the adventure going.

We spent the last hour and a half of today's journey walking with Mike and Kelly, another father-daughter combo. He recently retired from his career in banking and now he and his wife are gleefully lining up travels and adventures, starting with this one.

Their family lived and London around the same time we lived in Amsterdam. Kelly loved it so much she stayed behind to complete her high school senior year when the family moved back to California, and now works there. She and Jessica have a lot in common and seemed to really enjoy connecting.

One ironic moment. Jessica and Kelly were sharing about different people each had met along the way. Kelly mentioned Lauren and Natalie. Jessica said we met them too, then went on to share about their crazy day (the one that inspired Natalie's Folly). Turns out Kelly is the one who suggested the "fun detour" to them. Whoops!

This is the first time we exchanged contact info with others on the walk. Kelly and Jessica watched in wonder as it took several minutes for the old guys to share our info.

We're more than halfway there in terms of days and miles. It feels like it's going so quicky... even as we're moving so slowly.

One day at a time.