May 18th-19th Zamora to Campillo

I believe this to be a rough translation of the writing on the pillar I found in Zamora

The value of the Camino
and of life,
is not in what walks you make.
or in what you discover,
or in what you give,
the value of the Camino
is in the love
that your walk offers you!


Ramos de Castro

That could be
The value of the Camino is in the love that you give(or offer) in your walk
but for me, I found it was the love and friendship I received, that touched me the most

18th of May

Zamora

The bus pulled in the station and I got off and collected my rucksack and pulled it on its wheels into the WC and washed my face to wake myself up properly after a night of little sleep! It obviously didn’t work very well as on leaving, I left a staff leaning against the wall and after getting up a big flight of stairs and out into the street and generally puzzling about which way to walk I suddenly realised what I had done. I hurried back to find that it was still where I had left it, thank goodness! I started up the steps again. Outside I could see no arrows and I realised this was a part of Zamora that I had never seen before! I asked a lady which road went to the Casco Central or the old town. She seemed to understand that I wanted the old part of the city and pointed across to the right and told me to go down the big street there to the end and ask again. I crossed the busy road and set off down the one she had pointed too.
I couldn't see a sign anywhere that might help me to be sure I was walking in the right direction! When you are on Camino you soon learn the general direction you should be heading but getting off a bus after just waking up you have no idea! I walked some way, then seeing a bar with nice pastries and coffee, I entered and ordered a coffee and a apple tart. I ate and drank those and ordered the same again and when she brought it I asked her if I was going in the right direction and I was relieved to find I was. I walked quite a way and then suddenly found myself in a part of the old town I remembered and near where I had stopped before.



I wandered down the main street but saw no albergues although I knew there must be one here somewhere. I decided as I was tired from having no sleep I would try to find the place I stopped in last time as Nico, Jacques, Bernadette and I had been comfortable there. I went back and found the hostel 'La Reina' and was shown a small room. After a bit of bartering that meant I should use my own sleeping sheet and only one bed, chuckle, I got it for 28e. It was a nice room with a balcony and I could use it all day as it was vacant from now and that meant I could grab some sleep!



I took a few photos from the balcony then washed my shirt, pants, trousers and socks, opened the shutters and balcony doors and strung them out as best I could to dry. Then took a short nap!
























On rising I bought bread and milk and something for breakfast and I walked a bit around town to familiarise myself with this lovely city again. Afterwards I came back and sat in the square near the hostel where there was a cafe with tables in the sun. It wasn't as hot as when I had sat here in 2004 but it was pleasant today in the sun with the breeze kept away by the buildings as I chatted to a couple of tourists over a glass of red wine.


Saying goodbye to them I walked down the main street as I needed to get the route for tomorrow sorted out. So the first thing was to search for the tourist office to get a town map! I needed to ask if they could tell me how to find the Camino Portugués start!
This had been the problem in 2004! I had walked past the road to Portugal last time as the book gave the impression that a track or Camino would be marked on the left with an arrow! There had been no arrows for miles and I had finished up on the other Camino to Orense that they now seem to call the Mozárabe! I only knew it in those days as being part of the Vía del Plata! I had been too far out to turn back so had completed my Camino Vía del Plata on that!





































The tourist office was in a different building now I think, but once found they were very helpful, but really they didn't know much about the Portuguese Camino!
I'd had to get the route book from a nunnery before and it now looked as if I wouldn't do much better this time! I got the girl in the office to mark on my map where the Camino left town, and this she did. I was hoping I could find the split in the two Caminos this time by looking for the road to Portugal and by using my instructions copied down in my little pocket book translated from the large book the Nun had given me all those years ago. After all I reasoned, I had a list of village names and basic instructions with mud maps copied, I just needed to be careful and not rely on arrows at first and there was a road number!
I think I would have stopped a couple of days here if I had had a companion but I had been here before on a fiesta in 2004 and it had been all fun, music, traditional dress and colour. I'd seen the town again today dressed in its working clothes but still beautiful!






After eating a meal in the café in the square I decided I would walk the Camino until it left town, just to make sure I would find my way out of the maze of little streets when I left in the morning. My little book said San Pedro de Nave was 24.5 kms, this was not that far but it could be difficult finding the way, so more time than normal might be needed I thought.

19th May
Zamora to Campillo
San Pedro de Nave

I got up and was soon outside in the road behind the church and turned left down the hill. At the bottom I had to cross a busy road and find the road I wanted that went uphill again, but in the direction I wanted. I seem to remember I stayed on this for quite a while, worried I would miss the turning to La Hiniesta. How I found the road I now can't remember. I do remember there were a lot of factories and warehouses for some 3.6 kms and Valderrey seemed to be a suburb of Zamora. I took a right at a busy roundabout but seem to remember returning and going on again, but before long I know I was walking along a minor road having seen the sign for the small town somewhere. There were no more and I never saw anyone to ask and got worried that I was on the wrong road. I came to a big motorway bridge going over the small country road and here were many possible tracks that just might have been the Camino. I stopped and looked around hoping for the yellow arrow but could not see one. Just then a dirty brown 4L Renault came bouncing down one track towards me, so a stopped the guy and asked if he knew the track that would lead me to La Hiniesta
"Go under the motorway and take the first right, or you can stay on the road"
I went on and was not sure about the first muddy track I came to as it looked to be a service road to the motorway so stayed on the road about 2kms longer and then there was a turning with a signpost to the village!



Very relieved I took it and soon entered the village










keeping an eye on the church as my book said I had to pass it.









I took some photos and one of the plaque on the wall that indicated it was the right Camino and I felt that now I had at last begun this Camino.




"From the distant times, travellers who went to Compostela by the Vía del Plata (silver route) after visiting Zamora and the Saints landlords, San Ildefonso and San Atilano and other churches that are there, came to the Hiniesta. I call on the faith of the King Sancho, to request the protection of Santa Maria Our Lady who accompanies you on the Camino and the Camino of life"-from the plaque,- see photo.

I had seen one man but in the village it was deserted till a lady with a young girl came into the street. There was a small school on the other side of the road a little further on. I asked her if I was right to keep on this road for the Camino to Santiago and she informed me I was and wished me well. We spoke for a while and I gave the little one a koala. Happy now I went on and came to the edge of the village having seen no one else and I stopped and sat on a steel barrier.









I ate something, made a drink and had just finished when my phone rang. After a couple of tries it answered and I was chatting to Maisie.



I left here and was soon way-out in the country on a desolate track through ploughed farmland with very few trees and no hedges, or shelter from the sun. Not that that was a worry today as it was sunny but cold, but it would be in the summer. I came to a junction, the farm track turned right at about 45 degrees. A big granite sign stood at an angle, a bewildering number of footpaths carried straight on but seemed to all join up after a while. The huge granite sign had an arrow up the right side and I could not tell if it meant go straight to heaven, straight on or what. I tried straight on, then came back, and walked a little way on the wider farm track. Then I stopped and decided I had to make a decision. I took a chance and went back and took the footpath again. It was an unnerving long walk before I saw an arrow

I came down a small hill to a farmstead and a lorry stood outside.











I thought I would ask the driver, but saw the painted arrow as I got closer and happily went on.

but I was now walking beside pines as the book said I should be. The invigorating smell of pines stayed with me for about 4 or 5 kms.





























The rest of the day was very stressful as there were so few arrows and when there was any most were these big granite blocks that you either could not decide where it was pointing and often pointed the wrong way,- see the photo of the chap standing by the big sign. - do you go up or left!!! No the chap said "You go right, (When I got home I noticed the painted arrow under his feet!!!)

"ignore the next one and go straight on."
When I found that one it was in the corner of the field, a farm track branched off to the right and the track I was on went straight by! The big stone slab was set at an angle of 45% to both and no yellow arrow on it anyway, so it was of no help at all. I did as the man on the bike had said and went straight on for some kms. Later I took what looked to be the main track that here turned at right angles to the right, without a sign of any sort. Out here, even the villages weren't sign posted! I guess the local folk knew where they were! I turned right and I saw a tractor working in a field ploughing. I left my bag and stumbled across the field, stopped the tractor, climbed up and asked the driver if the track I was walking on was the Camino that went to Santiago. He had no idea and spoke a dialect but after trying the village names that I was supposed to find next, he said I was ok and to carry on!









In another 4 or 5 kms I came to Valdeperdices.

I asked if there was a shop and a bar for a coffee and was told both were closed and only open twice a week, but there was a albergue! When I found it in a little square, it was an old school building that looked unused for many years. I decided I needed water if I was to continue and looked all round the square and walked around the little church. I saw the peregrino Valdeperdices sign but found no fountain or tap.


Coming back into the small square I was checking on just what water I had, when a man arrived in a van and I asked him about the albergue. He told me he was there because he was knocking the building down! He said the old man that had run the albergue had recently died and the whole idea had been scraped. He had the key to the building and when I said I needed water he opened the door so I could fill my water bottles at a tap inside. I could then see he had made a good start on the demolition!

The villages seemed to be in dips and small valleys. The next one was but it covered one side of a valley. I think it was called Almendra.





I climbed the empty streets to the little stone church without seeing anyone or a marker.






So where to now I worried as I walked round the outside of the church. I would have loved to see inside, it looked so old.

I took the top corner street, and climbed up to the top of the hill. Where everything seemed to stop. A little way from the end down a side street a woman came out of a house and promptly hurried back in! As I turned round to go back an elderly man walked over to me from the same house. I presumed she had called him to come and see this strange peregrino! I managed to get him to understand what I was looking for but he spoke little Castillian Spanish but walked with me and then turned me aside down another narrow street so he could point to the road I needed. At the edge of the houses he pointed it out, it went up the other side of the valley! There was a farm worker mending a cattle trough in the corner of the field where we now stood. He joined in the conversation but was little or no help, as he spoke no Castellano at all! We now walked back and down to the little church and just below it my elderly friend told me to take the turning to the right. I soon left the village behind and walked out of the valley and was still crossing the same rolling type of country but greener and moor like now, with views of the reservoir (embalsa) in places.

The track came to a small tarmac road and downhill again into Campillo.














I was led to believe there was a bar here and continued through the village and as I went up the slope on the other side, the 7th century church of San Pedro de Nave was on my left.







The church is famous for being saved and rebuilt from the floodwaters of the valley when they dammed the river in the 1930's. Just past it was a very small but new bar standing in a cinder car park, and to my delight it was open. I was very tired and the stress of this poorly marked camino had been getting at me. I needed a coffee badly! One young chap was in the bar and I got my (café con leche) and chatted to him. I asked him if there was anywhere to sleep as I didn't think I could make it to the next village and even if I did, in my book there was no hostel marked! He shook his head and said
"No, there is nothing here!"
"Could I sleep on your patio tonight" I asked?
"Sorry no, the village people would see you and they wont like it" he replied!
This was not looking good so I had a cognac to cheer me up and walked to the window, looked downhill and studied the road where I had just come up. To my amazement a tall young man was heading this way carrying a rucksack! A peregrino!!!!
He was the first, and though I didn't know it at the time, the last I would come across on this trip until I reached Verin. I went outside to greet him.
Unloading his rucksack he followed me back into the bar. He spoke little Spanish so I tried English and I found he spoke it very well, his name was Janis and was from Latonia! We had coffee together and he asked me if there was any chance that we could stay here,
"I've got a tent" he added.
I told him that I didn’t think so, as the barman wouldn't let me even sleep on the patio!
"Still I'll ask again if you like," I said.
Janis was nursing blisters and I think seeing him and I treating them in the bar helped, because when we had finished I called him over and asked again. The young barman said,
"No tent, but you can sleep in the shed at the back!"
I translated to Janis.
"We may be in luck, there is a shed at the back, come on lets go and look"!
We went outside and walked around and found a curtained doorway, leading into a rough brick lean-to shed with a dusty concrete floor and two tatty old sofas in it. I hoped it hadn't been used as a kennel but I could see no sign that it had! We decided to cover the old sofas with the plastic I carried and sleep on them. Coming back we asked if we could get a meal and he said we could after 7.30pm. We agreed to eat there and left our bags while we went out to look around.

In the centre of the carpark was a very tall slender tree that had been cut down then propped up in an upright position here. In the topmost branches was a plastic chair and a life size dummy!












Later when we returned to the bar the barman explained that it was put up each year, a few weeks before our arrival as some sort of fiesta, a spring celebration! He said that, years ago the youngsters of the village would climb the pole to put the dummy up on the top, and frowned as he added,
"They use a cherry picker now!"
'But much safer I thought' chuckle
We went back out to look round the church and as we did a coach pulled into the carpark. There was a guide and lots of elderly tourists and the guide opened the church door with a huge key and I sneaked in to see inside too. It was 7th century and had some gorgeous ornamentation and I consider myself lucky that I had the chance to see inside! The friendly guide told me all about it too! Soon the busload of tourists went off to see the next wonder on their trip and we returned to the bar!
Janis and I sat and had more coffee and chatted. Our waiting was rewarded with a very nice meal of a salad with chorizo then two eggs and chips, a bottle of good vino and a home made flan. The helpings were generous too. We met the mother who had cooked the meal, also the father who helped at the bar and I think the young man's girlfriend (novia). We chatted to the locals playing cards and were treated to an orujo on the house before turning in for the night, in our Dog kennel at the rear! Twice or three times I had to get up and go and find out how cold it was outside that night, but then the reward for the discomfort was, seeing those stars! They were brilliant!