Buen Camino! - a  Philatelic Camino de Santiago 

Part II - the postcards

I should have sent one from Porto, also. 

This was my thought when I looked at the two postcards I have on my table as I type. In fact my journey began in the beautiful northern city caressed by the ceaseless flow of the Douro on its way to succumb into the Atlantic, much to the indifference of the city's hustle and bustle, for this has held true for thousands of years, and will hold true for many a thousand more... 

Why didn't I? I had the time and the opportunity…, but you can't go back in time, so I ended up sending but two postcards for me. One posted from the last town I touched before entering Spain and the other from the finish line, the magnificent cathedral that has witnessed thousands and thousands of people driven by faith or by will or by both come to its door from all Europe, from places as far as Poland or the Scandinavian Peninsula, or the Eastern Mediterranean coast.

The postcard I sent from Caminha though, has much more than a stamp and a postmark associated to it.

It is the reminder of a meeting. Not a chance meeting with fellow walkers or locals, like the many I had along the way, but a pre-arranged and, for me at least, highly anticipated one.

This blog has made it possible to exchange covers with a lot of people. From that group of friendly people who happen to share a common interest with me, a few have become more frequent on the "return to address, if undelivered" flap of the envelopes I so eagerly antecipate.

From this smaller group, an even smaller number has been kind enough to let me maintain some direct contact with them by email or a messaging app.

But, up to now, I had never met anyone face to face, I had never been able to put a face to the names I so often write and thank for another great addition to my growing collection.

That's why when I got a note from one of these kind souls saying he'd be probably able to meet me to walk a bit of a day's leg of my journey, I felt quite happy and immediately accepted his proposal, even though one of the main objectives of my journey was to be ... well.. alone, for a while, fully committed to my thoughts and perceptions. Still, my experience told me that meeting people with whom we have some common grounds, with whom we share some interests, is always much easier and productive than what my inherent shyness always makes me fear.

And this again proved true, for when I entered Praça da República at Vila Praia de Âncora and saw this bloke looking down the street  searching for someone with a backpack, I immediately knew we would get along well, and in fact the first few words we exchanged were the kind  that are exchanged between people who have known each other for some time: "Hi, there you are, so how is it going" "Fine, thanks" and without further ado we proceeded to a table on the patio of "Café Central" so that I could finally have a much  desired "bica" (what an expresso is called in the south of Portugal, for in Porto the same thing goes by the name of Cimbalino. Just don't worry, ask for a café, and everyone will know what you want, irrespective of geography).

Eric, for it is him who I'm talking about, was my gift for the day.  We had an enjoyable conversation, in Portuguese, for Eric speaks it as well as I do,  with no need for ice-breakers or weighing our own words,  from the very first expresso sips… But the earth was moving and so was the day and Caminha was still some 10 km away, so I got up to put my back pack on... but no way. Eric simply would not let me: "Let me take it for you, for a while".... I was flabbergasted .. "No, how come... it is heavy, you shouldn't..", but while I was still uttering my concerns, he was already adjusting the back pack belt to his waist....

And I, shamelessly, have to confess that not only did not insist (he was so determined...) but also deep at heart I felt a bit relieved because that was the longest leg of the entire journey (in excess of 30 km) and after 20, every gram in the back pack starts to inflate as by some strange physical phenomenon, so much so, that I believe I have discovered a new law of physics which will go down in history as the Eric and Pedro's axiom: after 20 km, every gram of matter increases in weight, in direct proportion to the distance travelled. ( I feel a Nobel coming in...).

So we took to the road that follows the coast and we spent a couple of delightful hours walking, talking and enjoying the magnificent views at our side, until, already close to the end of my leg, Eric had to turn back (to walk again almost 10 km to our point of departure).

“Take it, you must take it to the end of the leg”, said Eric, handing over the backpack to me.

We exchanged goodbyes, but a bond had been created...

And exchanged letters and postcards will now take more than stamps and postmarks with them, even if empty, or filled with just a plain unwritten card... 

I'm sure Eric agrees with me..

 

The main square at Caminha.... I had a great ice cold alcohol free beer on one of those cafe patios, while writing on my little logbook the notes for quite a special day,

The day's postmark of the Post office at Caminha on the stamp with an image of the castle of Miranda do  Douro, which stands some 300 km to the East, curiously also on the border with Spain . This stamp is part of a six N20 (Domestic up to 20g) stamps + 1 3,00€ (make some money for the company...) stamp souvenir sheet, issued on 10MAR2023, themed on castles and fortresses on the raia (the border with Spain).

It took me eight days from that day, Ito again send  another postcard home. 

Feelings invoked by the image of the cathedral on this postcard were now  much more mixed, though, for arriving was somewhat anticlimactic:

The journey had ended, period!

I was happy that I had conquered m Everest, I had attained my objective, but, somehow, I was a little sad that something that I had wanted for so long had just been completed... terminated.... achieved...

Still I'm sure other ways will be opened to my steps, to my waking poles....,yes, that's what the image of the cathedral reminds me of....that's what the image of the cathedral keeps telling me to do... so I'd better keep that postcard well at hand....

Santiago's Cathedral by night... even the moon walks to its courtyard, it seems.....

The stamp themed on Archeology,  issued on 16JUN2023, featuring the mosaics at the Salar Roman Villa, in Granada. 

Sadly, the beautiful pictorial Postmark of Santiago Central Post Office, with a image of the Catedral, is obliterated by a mechanical postmark, presumably pertaining to the Mail Prossessing Station at Santiago.