Vila Praia de Anzora to A Guarda 13km
Total distance 119kms
Climb 240m
Total climb 1300m

Today it was goodbye to Portugal and hello to Spain. We crossed the border at the River Minho. No border formalities here as they are both in the European Union. We did lose an hour as we had to put our watches forward.

It was a short easy day today. The Coastal and Litoral paths converge at Vila Praia de Anzora and both follow the shoreline to Caminha and the River Minho. It is dead flat but on hard surfaces. We met the Southern Californians, Ricky and Mike, again. Turns out they are a party of six and we met the “Details Guy” who basically tells the others what is happening each day.

At the River Minho we had to get a boat taxi, what we would call a water taxi, to cross over into Spain. There is a commercial car ferry that operates a little further up the river but it does not run on Mondays. At the narrowest part of the river there are little run-abouts that take passengers across. We were walking down the river wondering how it worked when a guy jumped out from trees, said: ‘Perigrino, boat taxi, 6 euros, stamp’. He already had four others waiting and so with us he had six which was the most his boat could carry. We were marched onto the boat, given life jackets and were off. He went full gas, weaving around other boats and a sand bar, and in about 90 seconds we were on the other side. He quickly unloaded us and was gone. Barbara says it was the most exhilarating thing on our journey so far.

It was to be a short day so on the Spanish side we stopped at a restaurant for a coffee to fill in time. Then there was a walk along the shore for about an hour to A Guardia our town for the night. Part of the walk was on boardwalk through some forest.  On the boards were white painted footprints where you could stand and look into the forest. Where trees lined up, white painted patterns had been painted, a half or a third of the pattern on each tree. Only in one spot did the pattern make sense, even though the trees were at different distances away from you. A bit hard to explain but you see it in the photos.

Most of this walk we did while talking with another Canadian couple from Vancouver. This was their first long distance walk and were doing this to see if they liked it. They were using Macs Adventures as their tour company. We had used Macs on two of our South West Coast Path walks. We had lots to talk about from our trips to Vancouver, Calgary, British Columbia and Alberta.

A Guardia is quite a substantial town and again our hotel is a very modernised older building. Dinner at a restaurant down on the waterfront is not until 8 pm and breakfast here in the hotel doesn’t start till 8 am. Not the best hours for us as we like to set out early knowing it is going to get hot, and don’t stay up late at night as we are tired. A Guardia is a fishing village and has a lovely sheltered harbour with a small sandy beach. The town surrounds the village and it lies such that it gets all the afternoon and evening sun

PS Dinner took from 8.00 until 10.00pm basically for a simple three course meal with wine. But that is how it is done in Spain so musn’t grumble.