Meeting Up in Baiona

Yesterday we left Oia before the sun was even over the hills—we had to set our clock back an hour when we crossed into Spain, and we were shocked at how dark it was in the morning. We walked for a couple hours along a beautiful stretch of beach, on a rocky but lovely trail, until we got to the town of Mougas (where we again had to join the infernal paved bike path along the highway. Big thumbs down.) The above is another marker where peregrinos have chosen to leave stones with messages, names and reasons for walking the Camino. This very large pile was also blessed by what must be a local artist, as the message pile was laced with beautifully painted stones.

Roosters are a symbol you see everywhere in Portugal, and now here in Spain as well. The story is this: Many hundreds of years ago, a peregrino was treated very poorly by a man whose land the peregrino was traveling through (it is the tradition of the Camino that pilgrims receive free passage and also the mercy of people along the way, in the form of food and drink.) This landowner apparently didn’t see it that way, and had the peregrino arrested. Someone informed the landowner that if he didn’t let the pilgrim go, his already roasted cock, meant for dinner, would come alive, stand up on the table and crow. 

Well, the evil landowner hanged the unfortunate peregrino. And sure enough! The roasted cock stood up on the serving platter and cock-a-doodle-doo’d! Much to the landowner’s relief (or, perhaps, terror) the hanged peregrino came alive, walked out of the barn and completed his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

We again had the opportunity to abandon the highway asphalt and headed inland, cutting up and over the range of hills to our next stop in the beautiful city of Baiona. Yet again, parts of the path were  ancient Roman roadways, with prominent ruts worn over many centuries by sardine carts bound for inland cities.

In Baiona, we successfully met up with our other peregrinas, Betsy and Jensen. They were still jet lagged, but all in one piece and ready to begin their part of the pilgrimage with us tomorrow.

Today, we began by hiking up to the Virgin of the Rock, a massive granite sculpture of the Virgin Mary that overlooks the beautiful bay on which Baiona is situated and also the city of Baiona itself. The Virgin is holding a ship that serves as an observation deck big enough for 3 people to stand on. Another super steep, super narrow and dark spiral staircase was involved to reach the deck and view the panorama, as well as the marble face of Mary. Coming down the hill, we took the rougher path that was studded with the 14 Stations of the Cross.

This afternoon we revisited Elementary school history. It turns out, Baiona was the place The Pinta returned to (in 1493) from it’s voyage to the Americas. Bryn and I, for the life of us, could not remember the name of the 3rd ship—embarrassing, but true. The - - - , The Pinta and The Santa Maria. We actually had to look it up. So, because The Pinta showed up here, Baiona became the first place in Europe to receive the news that Christopher Columbus had “discovered” the Americas. We got on board a replica of the ship (the replica itself is more than 100 years old) and were simultaneously kind of disgusted but also struck with laughter at the life size mannequin of an Indian in the hold. We weren’t sure if he was tattooed or had smallpox.

There are numerous monuments and sculptures in the area of Baiona harbor to commemorate the voyage of “discovery.” And, by the way, the other ship was The Nina!!

We are staying again tonight within the walls of a 15th century fort and castle at a very nice hotel. Tomorrow it’s on to Vigo, where we meet up with Andy—Betsy’s husband—and hopefully see the research ship he and his crew have been working on for the last year and a half.