Camino the Portuguese Way: Walking From Tui to O’ Porrino

What to do when my cruise ship is delayed for the third time. Go and walk 119km of the Camino in Spain. I mean who cares that I haven’t been training or that most of my hiking stuff is on a boat in Belfast. It’ll be great.

I really don’t know if I should be allowed to plan my own holidays. I think I seriously over estimate my own capabilities.

I was already in Spain touring when I heard that I had another week of delays, so I quickly scrambled for things that I could do that wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg. My friend Stacey had just posted pictures of walking the coastal walk of Portugal, so it was in my head – that’s right, I blame Stacey.

In all seriousness, I have wanted to do it, but I would have liked to be slightly better prepared. I decided that if I could do the whole section, awesome, but if I can’t and bail on a section, well, that’s okay too.

It’s called the Portuguese way, but I actually do not walk in Portugal. It starts in a little town of Tui. To get there from Madrid, I took a bus for 7 hours to Ourense ($86.35) and then transferred to a train to the closest town of Guillarei ($22.92).

One little problem was that I arrived very late, about 11:30 pm in the rain and the station was deserted. My phone is also for some funky yet-to-be-understood reason, will not call anyone without me being muted, so no one can hear me. This means no taxi. Now the hotel is about a 50-minute walk away, which isn’t that bad, but did I mention the rain, that it is in the next town, so highway, and it’s dark.

One advantage to deserted meant it was pretty safe and not much traffic. I just walked with my flashlight above my head so I could see and cars could see me. The rain stopped after about ten minutes.

I arrived in Tui and made it into my room of my very cute hotel by 12:30. Thank God I had contacted them earlier to let them know about being late so they had previously sent me a door code and put my room key on the counter or I would have been sleeping on the street.

I had arranged a luggage service to portage my bags each day to the next hotel. This meant that they had to be packed and in the lobby by 8 a.m., so no sleeping in. I got up, had breakfast, and was out walking by 8:30.

Depending on where exactly you start this portion and if you do the complimentary trail, it is 15-18km. It was lightly raining in the morning but not too bad. I walked for about 1 1/2 hour when I came to a cute little cafe, but I didn’t stop. Should have. The next bathroom is another 90 minutes away.

Some of the walk was on gravel/dirt paths.

This pilgrim is seen in many forms along the paths.

The walk was nice, and I saw some interesting things up until I got to one section leading into O’ Porrino, where there is a choice. I could choose to take the primary path (5km) or a complimentary trail that increases the distance by 1 1/2 km. I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE COMPLIMENTARY PATH.

About 1km into the shorter main trail, I was kicking the butt of my lazy self because it was a torturously long hike, 5 km, down an industrial road. It was noisy and unpleasant. The only saving grace was that it was an overcast day because there was absolutely no shade at all. A hot day would make this horrible section even worse.