Down on the Farm...

Sunday, May 27 -- Day 3 -- Sarria to Portomarin

Day 3 of our adventure started at about 6:00 AM when Roy's alarm went off.  We had agreed last night to start before 7:00 this morning and he was asleep when I came in last night, so I was committed.

We were outside the hotel at 6:45, about 15 minutes before sunrise so there was plenty of light in the sky.  Linda McFadden was in the lobby so she joined Roy and me as the earliest departing hikers of the day.  It was cool again today, about 48 when we started -- I could see my breath -- and it never warmed up above the mid 50's.  We hiked in sunshine until about 9 and then we dealt with a mostly cloudy sky and some threat of rain.  Fortunately the rain held off, although I kept my raincoat on all day, along with my long pants, to help cut the wind.

We hiked pretty quickly and found ourselves at a convenient breakfast stop about 8:45 and into Portomarin (Portominho) by 12:15. Portomarin in on the River Mio and is most well known for the lovely Romanesque church in the center of the town -- that church was moved stone by stone from the river valley before it was dammed up to form a reservoir.  All in all, about 14 miles in 5 hours of walking.  David Hoekema came in right behind us, but the balance of the group took  a more leisurely stroll and started appearing about 2.  By then we had showered and done laundry, caught up on e-mail and blogs.  We went for lunch at 3 and now it's about 5 so I'll work on this for a while and then take a little siesta.

My main thoughts today are reflections on the completely and totally rural character of the Camino.  I knew that it was rural, passing only occasionally through a large city and once in a while through a larger town, but this is a surprise to me.  Mostly it is little "pueblos" with maybe a handful of houses.  What struck me today was the overwhelming flood of senses that brought me back to the dairy farm experiences of my youth.

The walk itself is, more often than not, right past homes and barns and pastures and hay mows.  Sometimes, in fact, you walk between the house and the barn. In these, and other places, my senses were saturated with the essence of rural agriculture.

I heard chickens, and roosters, and barking dogs, and mooing cows, and the bells on goats and sheep, to name a few.  There was the roar of a diesel tractors and the hum of milking machines and bulk tank coolers.  In more pastoral settings, there were abundant birds, and even the occasional cuckoo.

It wasn't just sounds, it was sights -- farm gardens with garlic, and onions, and lettuce and potatoes and last year's brussel sprouts standing a meter high and going to seed, the distinctive Galician "horreo" (corn crib),  piles of round bales wrapped in white plastic and looking like over-grown marshmallows.  I saw barbed wire, fence posts made of concrete and some made of wood, and bulk tanks, and calf hutches and all manner of farm implements -- often parked in reckless abandon at the edge of a field signifying the end of useful life. And, there are stonewalls everywhere, separating field from field, the field from the path, and surrounding farm yards and poultry pens.  

And, if you've ever grown up on the farm, there are the smells.  Dairy cows feeding on fresh, spring pasture grass and all that entails.  In fact, that smell of manure is pretty pervasive as you walk, reminding you that Yes, you are out in the country.  The smell of freshly plowed fields, and hay drying in the sun, and corn silage and diesel tractors, all bring me back to my childhood.  And, there is almost always the smell of woodsmoke -- these same ancient stone-walled farm house that are now electrified and have telephones, and cable TV and Wi-Fi, still heat, and probably cook, with wood. So that lovely smell of wook smoke fills the air.

So, just three days into this adventure, I'm not just hiking along a path following the yellow arrows, I'm also walking with a sense of reminiscence and nostalgia and looking back, with some fondness, to an earlier time in my life.  They say that the Camino helps you find yourself, I guess I've rediscovered that growing up "on the farm" will always be a part of me.