DAY 15 ARMENTEIRA – RIBADUMIA, 7.38 miles 17999 steps.

Even during today’s walk I asked myself how on earth I could write about the beauty of this walk. The answer: lots of pictures.

Suzanne and I had another sleep and then gorged ourselves on another fantastic buffet breakfast before reluctantly leaving the hotel at 11am. Our hotel, the Pousada de Armenteira, is hard to describe. The advertisements say it’s a stunning example of contemporary Galician architecture, but to us it feels like it’s straight out of the 1960s, what Suzanne calls Frank Lloyd Wright meets concrete: rectangular sections, sometimes parallel and sometimes offset and interesting, and lots of wood and concrete. A large hotel with only 27 rooms. Yesterday, despite the rain, it was easy to stay inside.

But first the hidden Bathtub

The most fun part, in my opinion, is the bathtub – which I was sure our room didn’t have – until I was doing laundry and wondered what is this bar for? The shower floor lifts up to reveal A RECESSED BATHTUB. Did the hotel staff intentionally not tell us about it so we could discover it ourselves?

Surprise! There is a sunken bathtub hidden under the shower floor.

The path of stone and water

Today we walk the stone and water path that follows the small Armenteira river downstream, which once powered a series of about 50 sawmills and flour mills that were in operation until the 1930s. Tall trees above us, dense vegetation beside us, we walk in dark shadows past moss-covered stone structures from a time before concrete and steel. Built of stone and powered by water, viaducts crisscross from mill to mill. As the son of an engineer, I must trace the cascading choreography of water and stone and try to understand how it works.

We are simply enchanted by the ethereal beauty of these moss-covered ruins of industrial plants. There are few pilgrims to be seen; they are mostly people with dogs, families and young couples taking their Sunday stroll upstream.

I remember a discussion I had with our daughter Anna when we were travelling through Northeast Ghana in 2010. We had seen so many man-made attractions with some cultural significance or human ingenuity, like churches, shrines or palaces, but they felt empty, without soul. As we were planning our last days, Anna said she wished we could see something more natural. We talked about forests and waterfalls, something not man-made, and that’s how we ended up at Bongo Rock. There wasn’t much else interesting and natural in Northeast Ghana, but the conversation stuck in my mind. The jungle today shows both nature and man-made soil loss as the forest slowly reclaims it. I believe nature always wins.

We go into the forest

There is a millstone through this door.

Steve & Suzanne on the path of water and stone

It was the most beautiful part of our Camino and we felt like we had been transported back in time. When we left it, we were a little sad to return to the present, to a banal urban landscape where concrete and steel pave the way back to the same river, but now lined with vineyards ripening with young, bright, acidic green grapes. The idyllic landscape is gone.

I think this is the last third of this Camino. “The first part of the Camino strengthens the body,” I learned in a hippie Buddhist hostel on my first Camino. “The middle Camino calms the mind; from here to Santiago it’s for the soul.” Will we be ready to hear what Santiago is saying to our soul? I discussed our whys earlier in Day 0: Return to Santiago. For me, it was about my relationship to work now that I’m turning 65 next month; that, and finally, coming to terms with the staleness I feel in my relationship with God. For Suzanne, it was about doing this Camino after hearing Steve talk about it on and off for seven years, and also wondering what this next phase of life and ministry might hold for us, and finally, how long hours of unstructured time alone with God would actually be?

I think we have been very cautious about coming to any conclusions, but now that we are physically strong and spiritually calm, will we actually hear a word from the Lord? And how will it come to us?

It was fun to take on this mighty stag beetle.

It’s just a reality hangover

The rest of the walk is a bit of a disappointment. We stay off the Camino route, which wasn’t ideal; the hotel is underwhelming and the pizza tonight left a lot to be desired. And as for a good night’s sleep, the last night of a festival is waiting outside our window. Is it really that bad, or did I just spend two days in a four-star hotel and take the most beautiful walk through an enchanted forest? Maybe it’s a reality hangover.

Shadows and feet from day 15

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