Reminiscing about beer and coke floats

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Reminiscing about beer and coke floats

October 22, 2020 by notjustagranny

I’ve been chatting to my sister V in SA (1 of 4 who still live there) about coke of all things. She was relating an episode from yesterday when she and our youngest sister D were showing D’s kids how to make a coke float – for the uninitiated, that’s coke and vanilla icecream. It fizzes up and makes a delicious, albeit very unhealthy drink, and a glorious mess if you don’t drink it quickly enough 🤣🤣🤣

I went on to say that much as I loathe coke and the company behind it, it’s the only drink that will suffice on a hot summer’s day of walking. It slakes my thirst and gives me an energy boost when I need it most. It’s also very good with pizza and due to its chemical composition, it dissolves heavy food….the only other time I drink it.

From there the conversation went onto our planned Camino in 2022. We’re going to walk the Portuguese Coastal Route from Porto to Caminha and then inland to Valenca and from Tui to Santiago de Compostela.

It will be my 2nd walk along this route and her first, also her first time walking the Camino since she’s cycled the French Route some years ago with our father who was also a keen cyclist.

I’m not into cycling and prefer walking, so to her credit, she’s up for walking the route. Our conversation brought back memories of my pilgrimage and that I drank a lot of beer during my walk 🤪🤪 My last reply to her went like this:

“No my tummy either but it seems to do the trick with thirst and heavy food (coke).
My choice of tipple on the Camino was beer 🍺🚶🏻‍♀️🚶🏻‍♀️of all things…I usually had my 1st one at between 10am and 11am depending on whether there was a place open to serve 🤭🤭 Mind you, now that I think about it, that’s probably why I enjoyed the Camino so much 🤣🤣”

Since I seldom drink, this was a departure from the norm for me, but as they say…..”when in Rome….” and all that, it made perfect sense to keep the Portuguese locals and other walkers company. Anyway that’s my reason 😁😁🍺🚶🏻‍♀️

My memories of the Camino are many and varied. I had such a fantastic time….it was a huge challenge and I cried a lot from pain, but I also laughed a lot and met some super people along The Way. Portugal is such a beautiful country and the route follows the coast which meant I had the Atlantic ocean to my left every single day till Caminha.