August arrived and passed by quickly. Cold and one week with lots of rain. Although there are not a lot of pilgrim in August, there are some and the last week they had some rain. Not the soft summer showers, but the real October rains. This is the real introduction to Portugal rains!
This was also the month that we had lots of young pilgrims. The youngest two guys just finished high school, and we had a few in their twenties! Very nice.
Worse Nightmare in Bed
18:05 We just begin our meal, and eating our soup when a young man walks in and asks for a bed. No reservation nothing, He knows T, the pilgrim who is eating with us. It is good, there are three beds left. I walk with him to the casinha. The man from Germany looks fresh, clean and he is wearing nice clothes.
“Just join us when you are ready, the food is still warm”, I say to him.
“No, I don’t want to have dinner” he replies.
“Just decide when you are ready with showering and everything”, I say astonished.
“No, I don’t need to take a shower”, he replies.
“As you want, but you can just join us”, I say with question marks.
And then he explained. He had dinner and took a shower in Alvorge. Because T had warned him about bedbugs in Alvorge, he was careful, asked the owner about it. He didn’t know of any. But he checked under the mattress. He was confronted with two big ones walking on the bed. He ran out and walks to us, 6 km further, happy that he didn’t stay in the room with the bed bugs.
Sandals not good for Ankles
Since it rained again, we had the conversations around Casa da Lima’s table again inside. Abdulla, just 23 years old from England and originally from Egypt had some pains in his ankles. His shoes were not good, and then he walked on his sandals. For a short while this is fine, but he did it too long. So his ankles hurt and he bought new shoes in Tomar! Abdulla has an interesting job: he is engineer on ships.
“What kind of ships”, I asked.
“Cruise ships”, he says.
“Wow, then you have big parties in the basements of the ship with the crew”, I said
“Yes, they are so great”!
I wanted to hear some juicy stories of the engine room. He told us that a friend lost a finger there, crushed…
He works 2,5 months on the ship and then 2,5 months free. And in his free time he is travelling and this time he is walking the caminho!
No Reservation
We had two pilgrims who just stopped at our place around 5-6 o’clock. Very relaxed, and yes we had a bed for them. Wolfgang, an older pilgrim from Germany called us to ask for a bed. It was weekend and we were at the praia fluvial, we didn’t hear the call. He was just waiting for us, smoking a cigarette. There was another Germany pilgrim in the house already, but he didn’t disturb him, and just waited, very patient man!
I had to think of a woman in her twenties, who came without reservation, went inside and waited, while another pilgrim came out of the shower with just a towel… And then she booked via the booking website. No communication needed with us or the naked man, obviously.
