Portuguese Camino Coastal Route: Transition to the Spiritual Variant

Day 10 on the Portuguese Camino Coastal Route sees me transition onto the Spiritual Variant (Variante Espirtuel) from the Senda Litoral.  The Spiritual Variant of the Portuguese Camino is a 77KM alternate Camino route that branches off from the standard Portuguese Camino routes from Pontevedra and reconnects with the standard routes at Pontesecures.  Pontevedra and Pontesecures are also connecting points for the 3 major standard routes of the Portuguese Camino – Central, Coastal (official) and Coastal (Senda Litoral).  Doing the Spiritual Variant will add distance to the journey between Porto and Santiago de Compostela.  The normal Coastal Route of the Portuguese Camino is 283KM.  The distance between Pontevedra and Pontesecures on the Senda Litoral is 37KM.  Doing the Spiritual Variant therefore adds 40KM to the overall distance travelled. This lengthened my journey from 283KM to 323KM between Porto to Santiago de Compostela.  A friend of mine told me the Spiritual Variant is well worth the extra 40KM that the variant adds to the journey off the Senda Litoral route – so I followed her advice and transitioned to the Spiritual Variant on Day 10 of my journey on the Portuguese Camino Coastal Route.

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Day 10: Ponte Sampiao to A Armenteira, from the Senda Litorel to the Spiritual Variant – Hardest Camino day of my life (35KM)

I woke up at 6am today as I knew I had to have an early start in order to give myself ample time to get to my hostel on the Variente Espiritual in A Armenteira over 30KM walking away.

I left the hostel at 7:15am and started walking briskly.  The morning was crisp and I was making good time.  Around 2-3KM in, I encountered a Donativo organized by a lively man in is late 30s – early 40s from Pontevedra.

I was feeling a bit peckish and saw he had some fruit, and decided to sit down given the next actual cafe wasn’t until the 6km mark, and Pontevedra was still around 7km away and I had not eaten anything yet.

As I was examining which kind of fruit I was going to take, I saw a man heavily laden with both a large backpack and also camera gear strapped to his front.  He immediately asked the Donativo owner: “Do you have water”?  His name was Ricardo and he was an American of Puerto Rican origin.  He was 29 years old.  Weirdly Ricardo did not speak much Spanish, but that did seem to stop the Donativo owner from speaking to him in Spanish.

The rotund Donativo owner joked about how he had brought his lunch, and it was just staring at him, and he had to refrain from eating it was it was only 8am.  Then he continued to give us an impression of his lunch telling him to: “Eat me, eat me” – and the proceeded to engage in a dramatized exchange of him reasoning with his lunch (in Spanish) that it was too early for him to eat it… before revealing that once we leave, he’ll probably eat his lunch by 9:30am (all this was quite funny, I swear!).

I was laughing, but apparently all this was lost on Ricardo, as he truly did not speak much Spanish at all.  Eventually I felt like it was time to leave or the Donativo owner could go on for hours.  I got the sense Ricardo felt the same way, so we both kind of got up and backed onto the trail while saying our goodbyes. 

Now I was left walking with Ricardo – which is something I don’t generally do – walking with others that is.  I like to keep my own pace, and it is generally too slow and sometimes too fast for others.  However, in Ricardo’s case, his pace was very similar to mine (probably because he was so laden with his bags and camera equipment).  We walked together all the way to Pontevedra – taking the beautiful complementary route through the forest rather than the shorter highway route.

Through our nearly 2 hours of walking together, I found out that Ricardo was an electrician, and had recently completed a 1.5 year contract abroad for the US Embassy in Italy – I commended him on getting one of the coolest gigs I’ve ever heard an electrician getting

Ricardo was quite the hiker.  After the Camino he was planning to do a long through hike in Scotland – and the reason why his bags were so laden was because he was also carrying all his camping gear for his Scottish trip.

It turned out that Ricardo had done the Appalachian trail 6 years ago.  It took him 5 months and he still has life-long friends from the experience – one even wrote a book about the experience.  Ricardo had taken the cover photo.  We arrived in Pontevedra ready to sit down for some food and drink.  We had a proper breakfast at a nice cafe right off the Camino.  The fancy-looking cafe was full of locals – which is a good sign.  I ordered the egg and cheese toast and Ricardo ordered the same – but also ordered an additional Nutella and banana croissant.  I shot a surprised look at him – impressed by how much food he was going to be eating – and he just said “I’m hungry.”   He didn’t manage to finish the croissant – although both of us were amazed at how delicious the egg toast was.

After breakfast we parted ways when I needed to visit a pharmacy in town and did not want to hold him up – especially as we would be splitting up after Pontevedra anyway as he was continuing on the Litoral route and I was going on the Spiritual Variant.

I had to pick up so hydrocortisone cream and some mosquito repellant.  I got eaten alive sitting outside in Vigo. It turns out Spain in the summer is rated “Extreme” 9/10 by MosquitoForecast.com. By contrast my hometown of Vancouver is rated about a 3/10.

I recall getting eaten alive one day in Galicia the last time I was on the Camino, and chided myself internally for not being more careful with using repellant when I was spending time outdoors. The pharmacists handed me what would normally be prescription strength hydrocortisone cream in Canada as well as a 50% deet repellant.  I normally baulk at deet repellants – but given they have something called “Tiger Mosquitos” in Galicia – I didn’t feel like taking any chances, since I was already reacting badly to the bites I already got in Vigo – and the areas I was going into were going to be more rural in the next few days.

The trail was hot and nondescript out of Pontevedra. I got to the Spiritual Route turnoff by midday, and a few kilometers in – nearly got sidetracked by misleading arrows. This lead me to download the Wise Pilgrim app as well as the Stingy Nomad guide to ensure I was going in the right direction.  This was when I finally noticed the elevation profile of what was to come.

It looked like a giant mountain awaited me in the latter part of the day – and it was going to be nearly 700 meters in elevation climbed over the course of 5KM?  This made me quite nervous – I was semi-panicking hoping that what I was seeing was in feet rather than in meters… FYI: it was in meters. The route was basically going to go down to sea-level (0m/0ft) and then climb nearly 700 meters or approximately 2000 feet by the end of the day. This is why I should not be allowed to plan things (because I don’t, and then there’s either a story to tell or an evacuation).

The trail first goes all the way down to the water – 0 meters – through the seaside town of Combarro, before the climb begins.  A grueling climb up hot asphalt and then even hotter cobble stones.  Thankfully there were at least 2 self-serve Donativos at various points of the climb that was serving cold water and orange juice by donation – these folks were truly doing God’s work.  However, by the last few kilometers of the climb, we were out of the city on a gravel road and there were no more Donativos

Make sure you carry at least another 500ml or 1L of water for the last 5KM of the route to A Armenteira as there are still some punishing climbs and then descents ahead – often completely exposed to the sun.  I felt like I was having a spiritual journey, or moreover an “out-of-body” experience dripping sweat and near-delirious from exhaustion from the climb and the heat. This last part of the journey was the most punishing of anything I have ever experienced in the over 1000KM I have walked over the French Route, the Camino Finisterre and the over 200KM so far on the Camino Portuguese.

I kept checking my altitude, and it impressively kept climbing higher and higher as I navigated through various switchback logging roads.

At around an altitude of 430m, the climb relented, and I started some gradual descents.  As I got within a few kilometers of A Armenteira, the trail turned off to a rather rugged and rocky trail with some steeper descents that had to be navigated carefully.

Eventually the trail spat me out on the outskirts of town, and I entered through a country road that welcomed me into the town with a row of stunning hydrangea bushes.  Almost like a heavenly welcome after trudging through hell.

The municipal albergue in A Armentiera had messaged me 2 hours earlier around 4pm to make sure I was still on track to make that evening (as a side note: the municipal albergue in A Armenteira is one of the only municipal albergues that will take reservations in advance.) So if you’re a slow hiker – make sure you book in advance, as the Albergue does fill up and it was full the night I stayed.

A Armenteira as a quiet country village, with 2 restaurants (only 1 was open while I was there) and a small convenience store.  The Monastery, the Albergue and an upscale hotel: Pousada Armenteira are the major points of interest in town.

The Muncipal Albergue de San Eros – has been recently renovated, and all beds are single beds with and associated closet per person.  It is impeccably clean and has some of the most stringent anti-bed bug measures I’ve seen so far in an Albergue.

Shoes must be left outside in plastic containers, and backpacks are sprayed with disinfectant prior to being brought inside the albergue.  The albergue has a small kitchen as well as a washer and dryer. The albergue manager was excellent and we had good communications from the time I pre-booked the hostel until I left.  Only downside was there was a green emergency guidelight above my bed that kept me awake during the evening. I managed with the last of my energy to drag myself to the only open restaurant in town, and had a scrumptious dinner of Zamburinas and Razor Clams for dinner.

Overall, this was a doozy of a day – which could have been mitigated with better planning. It was honestly only as hard as it was because I never bothered to check the elevation profile of the route; otherwise, I likely would have done what smarter hikers generally do – which plan the stage to A Armenteira from Pontevedra (the start of the Spiritual Variant) which would have made the day and the rather punishing climb to A Armenteria only a 25KM day rather then the whopper 35KM day along with a late day 430 meter (1400ft) elevation climb in the burning late day sun by starting 10KM earlier in Ponte Sampiao the way I did. Learn from my mistakes – and check the elevation profile of the route when you’re planning your walking stages. Even coastal Caminos can have sizeable climbs.