Last night was not my favourite.

Our accommodations were to be found in a less than savoury area of Coimbra. We had to walk up some narrow, winding alleyways covered in graffiti and littered with broken beer bottles, etc…

The hostel was across from a depressed looking warehouse and from that warehouse came an incessant, deep, pulsing beat. It started in the evening and carried on All. Night. Long.

The dark, unsettling sound which only stopped in the morning around 6:15 was followed by a great deal of shouting and commotion. Then peace. A few moments later the church bells began to ring from lower down in the town. I don’t think I was ever so happy to see morning and hear the lovely bells.

I barely sleep all night and the unfortunate fact was that we had to walk about 33 km on this particular day. It rained off and on all day.

Then we met a dog. There have been lots of dogs along the way so far. But this one in particular we won’t ever forget I’m sure. He was not a friendly dog. He was determined that we would not take a step further. He was barking ferociously at us and kept running back and forth in front of our path. If we tried to move forward he would run at us barking and snarling. I was so scared. The girls and I each started praying silently. I was praying that someone would come and help us and Daisy was praying to St. Roch and St. Francis. This situation carried on for what seemed like an eternity…then all of a sudden a car drove up and began honking at the dog. It scared him away for a moment but as soon as the car passed the dog came back at us. The driver came back around, put his window down and shouted something in Portugués at the dog. The dog passively turned around and trotted obediently back to his home. It was astounding! Deo Gratias, our prays were answered and the Way was clear.

We were exhausted, rattled, hungry and soaked by the time we reached our accommodations at close to 7pm. We were so happy to collapse in our beds that night.