‘Bom caminho’ I hear loud and clear. The voice is so near to me that wind is not needed to carry the voice to my ears. I am walking on a stretch with some pilgrims behind me and I am happily surprised to be greeted with this standard line. Then I see the plump man who a day earlier was engrossed on his phone while I slung ‘bom caminho’ at him. I realize he does this to make fun of me. Sure enough he talks to me, asking whether the trailer is easier on a downhill or uphill. ‘None of them’, I reply ‘especially not now I have a shin splint.’ For some time we walk together, reluctantly, and we do talk a tiny bit. He’s American and I imagine him a leader in some business: a moody executive who uses few words, instead staring at a screen of either a phone or a notebook to plan the walk from Porto to Santiago de Compostella. A route that needs precious little planning. We walk a same pace, in the rain and I can’t help mentioning the rain. He, walking briskly from one dry hostel to the next dry hostel, covered in rain gear, appearing one black cone of melted plastic, answers: ‘All in all, it’s not that bad with the rain.’
Cycling Cindy 