O Caminho de Santiago

With the holiday season approaching, Rui and Joel announce a special early gift for members of Practice Portuguese! Listen and find out exactly what is on “the Way”…

The Caminho de Santiago adventure begins! Rui and Joel start off their journey in beautiful Porto, Portugal, and immediately experience the warmth, simplicity and uncensored honesty of the Northern Portuguese people, and embrace their new role as ‘peregrinos’ (…or is it ‘pelegrinos’?).

Approaching the border into Spain, Joel and Rui try to figure out at which point Portuguese will start transitioning to Spanish, as well as the curious Galego (Galician), a curious hybrid between the two. As they delve deeper into the local habits of Northern Portugal, Rui’s injury starts to catch up with him…

The pilgrims are finally in Spain, and have their first contacts with speakers of Galician, Portuguese’s sister language. As the streak of sunny days comes to an end, the unforgiving weather leaves everyone grumpy!

The journey comes to an end as the group arrives to Santiago de Compostela. They reunite with their fellow pilgrims they met along the way, and start making their way back home. It may take weeks for the blisters on their feet to heal, but their memories of O Caminho de Santiago will last forever.

Fully immersed in the spirit of the Caminho, the pilgrims spread out and begin traveling a bit more independently, rather than sticking together as a group. But the isolation gets to them, prompting Rui to give the performance of a lifetime to nobody except for perhaps a few farmers (and lucky for us, the camera!). Meanwhile, Joel gets so isolated that he starts wondering if he’s actually even on the right Caminho at all…

As the group inches closer to Santiago de Compostela, Rui and Joel attempt their best Portunhol (Portuguese + Spanish) to talk with a lovely, patient Galician farmer. As they feel the end of the Caminho approach, they start reflecting on their journey and on what they’ve learned so far.

Joel and his new sidekick continue trying to find their way back to the other pilgrims, and Rui starts dealing signs of a problematic injury…

At this point of their journey, Joel has already sacrificed his fashion sense (and dignity) for maximum comfort and UV protection. Later, Rui finds himself in a conversation for which even he wishes he had subtitles!

On their second day of walking, the beauty of the Caminho is already starting to reveal itself, just like the blisters on the pilgrims’ feet. Rui and Joel also begin discovering some of the regional terms and expressions used in the North of Portugal.