Fisherman’s Trail

I love the sea, the ocean, simply water. That's why I decided not to take the inland route after Lisbon, but the more unknown part along the coast, at least until Nazaré.

The path was beautiful and the view mostly breathtaking. But it was coast, which meant a lot of steep up and down, a lot of beaches and cliffs. I could hardly get out of a sweat. The path was not very pilgrim-friendly either. Instead of albergues, there were surfer hostels and the signposting was poor or non-existent. Some days I could already see the city in the morning, which was my destination for the day. Because of all the up and down, I could usually only see a few metres of the path directly in front of me. That often meant I didn't know if I could really go that way. I love shortcuts and I'm also a person who always thinks I can find a way through because I could theoretically go that way. All my attempts at shortcuts failed miserably. Often I suddenly found myself in front of a very high maize field where there was no way through, or I had to climb over very steep, slippery stones. Where I might have been a bit faster on the official road.

On the day I went to Ericeria, I started quite late. The day was extremely hot and the path very strenuous, so my progress was slow. Shortly after 6 o'clock in the evening, it started to get darker, so I tried again to take a shortcut. The beach was cut by a small river and I didn't want to take the diversions to the bridge. So I walked down the slippery stones to the beach and tried to find a shallow spot through which I could cross the river. My mood was already pretty bad, I was exhausted, it was getting late and I still had 4 km to go. The spot I took was not flat and after a few steps my shoes were under water. I don't like to go back, so I kept going. Knee deep I trudged through the water trying not to slip and fall. I was extremely focused on every step I took. When I briefly looked up I saw that the sky and the water were slowly turning pink, which looked beautiful. I crossed the river and walked up the stairs to the car park. On this way, the sun started to disappear. There had been 3 drops on and off that day, but still mainly sun. I noticed that there was a complete rainbow on the other side from the sunset. When I got to the top, I sat down with my shoes dripping and my legs cold, struggling to realise how beautiful this world can be. I probably saw one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever experienced that day. The sky turned from orange-pink to various shades of purple and blue and on the other side a rainbow.

Since it was still 3 km to Ericeria and I didn't want to walk in the dark or with wet walking shoes, I took an Uber for the rest of the way and watched the purple evening sky and the brightening moon from the car.