Day 6 - up the steep hills

Day 6 Portugal Camino - our day started off with a cool brisk walk through Ponte de Lima over the medieval bridge (rebuilt in 1368) over Rio Lima. It was quite beautiful as headed into the countryside we went. We saw a grape harvest in progress and were offered handfuls of grape clusters from a local vineyard. They were delicious - I call them Concord grapes as that is what they look and taste like, but they may be something else, nevertheless - they were good. Our trek today was very, very steep and quite the challenge over rocky terrain. We stopped several times along our ascent to catch our breath. It was a 450 meter incline. Interesting - many of the pine trees had plastic bags stapled to them. Two bags on most of the trees, one with liquid pine resin and the other with white, hard, sticky residue. Not sure who goes around collecting all of the this - as there were 100's of trees with these bags stapled to them. What a job that would be on this kind of terrain to go around collecting all of these bags. We met with several of new pilgrim friends along today's journey and reminisced about the night before and shared our experiences. We arrived at Repouso de Peregrino, just before Rubaies, in the early afternoon. The owner advertised free laundry so we took up her offer. We were all craving these delicious custard tarts with the buttery yet flaky crust, and were told that there was a Supermercado just 2 minutes from our hotel. So off we went - just about missed the grocery store, and it was no "super" mercado and had no tarts! You were not allowed behind the till to see the products and had to pay for the groceries on one side and then go out the door into another door to get some cool refreshments on the other side. We had a great picnic with our cheese, crackers, nuts and chips - stellar carb food (maybe not), but it was good. We spent the afternoon hanging up our clothes and then trying to catch them before the wind blew them off the line. We found if we placed the clothing basket just right, sometimes the wind would blow them into the basket rather than on the ground. Not enough clothes pins to go around. Our evening ended with a ride to another village for our supper meal. The hotel provided the van to transport us, and were whipped around the corners in the van built for 6 but had 9 passengers. The food was good. We were thankful for the ride back as the it is pouring rain outside. We are hopeful for a sunny day and dry weather tomorrow, either way, we have clean fresh clothes!