Camino del Norte Day 35: Tapia to Ribadeo

The albergue was silent last night and we slept amazingly well. We woke up to grey skies and enjoyed a hot coffee at a café before setting out. The markings out of town were quite confusing and we ended up following shell markers for about 2 kilometers, in what felt like totally the wrong way according to the GPS and maps. Finally, a local woman stopped in our car to tell us this was a poorly marked route that goes very far out of the way and offered to drive us back to Tapia to start over. We gratefully accepted and began on the more popular and shorter way, which begins along the highway but soon gets off into beautiful footpaths near the sea.

The weather continued to be grey and drizzly, but the stormy, rocky coast was amazing to behold. We relished some of our last glimpses of the sea, as we will soon be in Galicia heading south toward Santiago de Compostela. We enjoyed a snack break at a little hermitage overlooking the sea. The markings became confusing once again after the Penarronda beach. We followed arrows on a road route, but were disappointed that the camino route does not follow the coast more, where there is a local marked path already.

The rain became steadier and harder as we approached Ribadeo, which is at the far end of a 600m bridge. The pedestrian lane had only a low barrier separating the path from a plunge of several hundred feet into the river below. The wind and rain did not help with the feeling of being on a ledge over an abyss! We happily arrived at the Ribaseo albergue just as the rain became a deluge. We were the first to arrive to this sweet little albergue, the first of the Galician Xunta albergues on the Camino del Norte. The Xunta albergues are administrated by the government of the autonomous region of Galicia. They are mostly purpose-built with kitchens and all cost a flat fee of €5. They tend to be nice but sometimes lacking in character. This one, however, with a view down to the river, has quite a bit of character! There are only 12 beds here, but it is almost 6pm and there are only 6 of us here: 2 from Spain, 2 from Czech Republic, and we two Americans. There is a nice little sitting rooms with small tables and a couch, and a lot of brochures, maps and advertisements for services in the town.

While there were some tempting restaurants with €8 menus, we decided to utilize the kitchen, so Dave braved the elements to get some groceries and is now cooking up pasta with meat and chickpea sauce and peas. He also finally found some instant coffee packets that are not decaf! Every grocery store seems to only have instant coffee packets in decaf, so we stocked up when we finally found some with caffeine! Of course, a real café con leche is preferable, but this is cheaper and we don’t have to rely on finding a café open.

Looking forward to the hills of Galicia tomorrow, and hoping that the rain will be finished by then. My mom started walking today from Astorga on the Camino Francés and is sleeping in Rabanal tonight at one of our favorite albergues, Albergue Guacelmo, run by the British Cofraternity. We are looking forward to meeting up with her in about a week to walk to Santiago together.

Camino del Norte Day 34: La Caridad to Tapia

Dave and I had a slow morning today, mostly because we have found a friend who is carrying an electric razor, so Dave took the opportunity to borrow it and give himself a haircut. We had a very easy walking day today, after our long day yesterday, as we really need to catch up on work. The weather was very pleasant and the path went through undulating farmland with some views of the sea in the distance.

We arrived in Tapia in the afternoon to find the albergue is right along the sea with a marvelous view! Our German and French friends that we have seen almost every day were there already. The weather was extremely cold and windy, and we were surprisingly tired so we laid down and took a nap. Tapia is a lovely port town with some nice restaurants down by the port. We enjoyed a cozy evening in the albergue, with the wind and cold raging outside, chatting with our fellow pilgrims and drinking hot tea and red wine. There were only about 10 of us in the albergue with 30 beds.

Camino del Norte Day 33: Luarca to A Caridad

In spite of having a private room last night, we both woke up rather exhausted. As a weekend night, the café below us seemed to be having a rollicking party until the wee hours. Our bed was somewhat hammock shaped, which was uncomfortable on our sore backs and shoulders. We allowed ourselves the chance to sleep in, and even had a leisurely breakfast at a lovely pastry shop with huge delicious cups of coffee and speedy wifi.

The view down to the port leaving Luarca was superb, and we had a nice walk on smaller side roads and dirt paths. We thought about stopping half-way in Piñera, which has a former school renovated as an albergue. However, when we arrived to the albergue, there was a note saying to go back 1km to get the keys! Also, since it is Sunday, the local shop is closed so we would have to order meals from a local family, which might have been nice, but since it was still early we decided to press on to A Caridad.

We cross over the River Navia in the town of Navia and briefly considered getting a private room, since Dave was not feeling very well, but we continued on, arriving to the next albergue around 6pm. The older guidebooks that we have note that the A Caridad albergue is very wet and moldy, but there is currently a new albergue in the town just before A Caridad that is being used while the A Caridad albergue is being renovated.

The new place (in Árboces, 1km before A Caridad) was quite nice, with 32 beds and only about 10 of us staying there. We took rejuvenating hot showers and walked into town to have hamburgers for dinner. We caught up with Zak, our American friend, and some Spanish young people we had seen before.

Camino del Norte Day 32: Cadavedo to Luarca

We walked a lot of today with our new friends Zak, from Oregon. We had coffee together at the nearby café (and utilized the wifi of course) then began our short day to Luarca/Al Muña. The walk was pleasant but somewhat unremarkable. There were a few confusing spots with arrows indicated in more than once direction, but we found our way. The trail has been improved since most of our guidebooks were written, so we were pleasantly surprised to have more walking on dirt paths and smaller roads rather than the highway.

We arrived in Luarca in the late afternoon, and debated whether to stay or keep walking. We had heard that the Al Muña albergue, which is 2 kilometers off-route, was not very nice and that the hospitalero was very unfriendly. There was an affordable pension along the camino in Luarca, which came recommended by the Cofraternity of Saint James guidebook, so we decided to stay there for €30. We were not all that impressed with the place and its saggy bed, but it was nice to have a room to ourselves and we both fell right asleep and slept for several hours!

We went out to explore the town a bit and get some groceries for dinner. We especially enjoyed eating empanadas de atún, (tuna empanadas) from the bakery. We were still so tired that we treated ourselves to a movie night in the pension and watched a movie before drifting off to sleep.

Camino del Norte Day 31: Soto de Luiña to Cadavedo (25km)

We didn’t get much sleep last night, mostly because Dave felt some creepy crawlies in his bed so we moved to the dining room and slept on our foam mats on the floor, but were awakened at 6:30 by some enterprising German fellows who were starting before dawn to do an extra long day. Our dear hospitalero Pepe who briefed us on the route today neglected to mention that there is a split with a more mountainous route staying off the highway. At the split, I decided to explore this mountain option while Dave stayed on the more popular twisting and turning option on the old highway.

The mountain route was beautiful and remote, with lovely views to the sea and into a valley to the south. I had the path completely to myself and didn’t see a soul for about 8 kilometers. Flurries of purple grey butterflies fluttered around me and purple and pink heather blanketed the forest. The trail was fairly well maintained and marked until it joined a paved road, when all the markers stopped.

I came to a Y with no markings, and after consulting maps and guides, could not tell which way to go. Most of the guides do not include the mountain route because apparently it is not marked completely! I followed a very faint arrow to the R onto a very pleasant country lane and passed a sweet little chapel and descended down to the town below to meet up with Dave and walk the rest of the route on the sea route. Apparently, the rest of the mountain route is poorly maintained and very difficult, so it seems like it is being phased out as it is rarely used. It’s too bad, as I really enjoyed such a long stretch of quiet nature far from roads.

We were rather worried that the albergue in Cadavedo would fill quickly, as it has only 10 beds (with 3 more mats on the floor). However, we were only about the fifth to arrive so had no problem getting a bed in the tiny albergue. People continued to arrive, and one Spanish woman came just as the beds had all filled. She was so crestfallen we offered to sleep on the floor so that she could have a bed. In reality, we quite prefer sleeping on the floor in the kitchen to another crowded room of bunks ☺ but she was quite happy and grateful, especially to have a bottom bunk. We were a bit disappointed that two people arrived by support vehicle but grabbed some of the best beds, since usually those who come in car are not able to select a bed until all the walkers have arrived… This small albergue is a bit ramshackled, with a toilet that is not hooked up to running water (you have to flush using a bucket) and using the hot water heather always tripped the circuits plunging us into darkness… but for only €3 it is hard to complain! There are some private rooms available in town for €15, which is a also a good option that we saw pilgrims utilizing.

Since the albergue costs only €3 we decided to treat ourselves to a hot dinner at the nearby restaurant. We had an extremely filling and tasty meal for €8 each. We had a bottle of red wine, a first course of tuna pasta (for Dave) and a huge tureen of delicious pea soup with potatoes and sausage (for me, which could have easily been enough to fill me up completely!) followed by a massive plate of stewed beef and fried potatoes, then had tasty homemade arroz con leche and flan for dessert. Tonight was one of the few times I have seen Dave unable to finish his meal, especially rare when there is still meat on that plate!

We are hoping to catch up on sleep tonight, but might be difficult sleeping in the kitchen which is also the place that pilgrims congregate to socialize. Our crew here tonight is made up of a Lithuanian man (from Palanga!), two Germans, three French, one Italian, one Spanish, a Scottish guy, an American from California, and we two Americans.

Camino del Norte Day 30: El Pitu to Soto de Luiña

We had a glorious, restful day which began with a lovely breakfast in our hotel. Toast and crepes with plenty of cafe con leche. We utilized the wifi to get some work done until 11am, letting our clothes finally dry thoroughly in the sunshine.

We hit the road around 11am passing out of El Pitu via a nice dirt path through the woods. We stopped at a truck stop for lunch sandwiches and stocked up on food at a huge grocery store. The path was quite nice until we hit a patch of construction. Apparently the superhighway flyover has been under construction for the past several years, so all the guidebooks seem to feature different detours depending on the state of the construction.

Following the signage, we ended up along highway 632 for a bit before we were directed to a side road, which curved pleasantly down to the beach. The view of the previous flyover and the new construction was quite amazing and futuristic. Spain seems to build superhighways that pass straight over valleys, rather than dynamiting the mountains or building tunnels. They are quite impressive and massive structures, looking rather out of place amongst the sleepy villages and grazing lands of the peaceful valley.

After navigating the detour, we enjoyed a pleasant country road and then forest path which lead us to Soto de Luiña, a very sweet little town that is surprisingly well-equipped with several bar/restaurants, a good grocery store, various other shops, and a large albergue with 20 beds on a donation basis.
A local cafe even has good fast wifi, so we are really set!

Around 7pm as we ate our grocery store dinner, hospitalero Pepe appeared at the albergue with several laminated topographical maps in order to talk us through tomorrow’s route. He was a very polite and formal character, and it was most useful to hear details about the route. It is always fun to figure out how to translate the message into the various languages gathered, e.g. I translate to English, a German guy translates my English to German, someone translates the German to French, etc. The hospitalero says “acantillado,” I say “cliff” and various other translations bounce about until we all understand more or less.

Tomorrow looks like it will be a fun day with sea views along the “acantillados.” 🙂 It should be around 24 kilometers to Cadavedo where we hope to spend the night. We’re feeling good knowing that we’ve walked over 800km so far (according to the GPS, which includes detours and walking around town in the evenings). We have under 300 more km to complete of the actual trail so are about 2/3 of the way finished with the approximately 830km trail (we will likely walk more like 1200km total with the detours and walking around towns).

Camino del Norte Day 29: Avilés to El Pitu

Dave and I both slept great last night for some reason. Though there were a few snorers and some late-night talkers, something about the mattresses and the cool breeze outside was conducive to sleep. We got up fairly early and went in to the old city to explore the historic buildings of Avilés more. We were also happy to find a cafe open early offering breakfast. The weather was grey and cloudy so we couldn’t get very good pictures of the historic monuments or the beautiful 8,000m2 park in the center of Avilés. The churches were interesting to see, but unfortunately none of the are open so we couldn’t visit inside.

Leaving Avilés was much more pleasant than the industrial entrance. We were feeling rather blah in the cool cloudy weather, but the sun came out before long and we had quite a pretty day. There seem to be more dirt paths here in Asturias than in Cantabria. We didn’t have very much food with us, so we hoped to find a shop, but of course we came past the shops only during the siesta hour as usual so we made do on cookies, granola bars and chocolate.

The last section of our day was a lovely dirt track through a forest, which was so refreshing after so much road and industrial walking. We arrived to the little hamlet of El Pitu, which has a tiny shop, one cafe, and several hotels. Hotel Aguilar is a charming little place, and we really have a lovely room that looks like something out of a design magazine for rustic country cabins. We took our hot showers, did the obligatory laundry and have been working away. The cafe starts serving dinner at 8pm so we are eagerly awaiting a hot dinner.

Camino del Norte Day 28: Gijón to Avilés

We managed a relatively early start this morning and headed straight to the Post Office to mail away our extra weight. We left feeling much lighter after mailing over 5 kilos and were delighted to the find that the Spanish postal service offers a “paquete peregrino” special rate, so our package cost only €6.17.

The spring in our step didn’t last long, as leaving Gijón involves navigating some truly terrible industrial areas, including a huge carbon factory spewing smoke and steam. We had to cross a dicy highway with no crosswalk and suddenly a huge truck was barreling toward us, we sprinted out of its way, but a less spry pilgrim may not have been so lucky! The view, smells and sounds of the factories stayed with us over the next kilometers, but the path gradually moved into more rural areas and finally to Monte Areo, a pleasant recreation area with forests of eucalyptus trees and some prehistoric dolmens.

This pleasant middle section was not enough respite, however, as we entered Avilés via another industrial area full of fertilizer factories and other industrial complexes. The trail is marked along a highway for 5-6 kilometers of very uninspiring walking. We decided we would highly recommend for pilgrims to skip this day by bus, or at least take a bus to the outskirts of Gijón and from the outskirts of Avilés to avoid the dangerous and very unpleasant highway industrial walking.

The treat was arriving to old city Avilés, which is quite beautiful and bustling and friendly to pilgrims. The albergue is ok, very simple. The elderly gentlemen checking us in seemed to have a bit of a memory problem. As we checked in he complimented our Spanish, and a few hours later spoke with us again saying “There’s an American couple here from Pennsylvania who speak very good Spanish” not realizing that we were that couple!  The showers were wonderfully hot. We did some laundry and went to the town and get some food.

The next pilgrim albergue is over 43 kilometers away in Soto de Luiña. Most of us at the albergue are not interested in walking that far (almost 30 miles!). There are a few hotels advertised in the Avilés albergue which are about 28km away and offer very reasonable pilgrim prices, so we booked our space at Hotel Aguilar.  There is a youth hostel about half way in San Esteban, but it is 1.5km off route and also costs €16 a person with breakfast– more than our private room at the hotel!

Camino del Norte Day 27: Gijón Rest Day

We were feeling so tired this morning, I think we were likely still dehydrated from the day before. We took a bus in to Gijón city center but just didn’t have the energy to walk the 25km to Avilés, so we checked into a very cheap pension (€20 dbl, nice big room but not very clean…) Our goal is to rest and get completely caught up on work, explore Gijón more thoroughly, and prepare some of our things to mail ahead to get our packs lighter (for example, I have been collecting brochures, maps, bus schedules, etc from tourist info office that is starting to add up in weight!)  I have actually also been carrying an extra (empty) pack inside my pack every since Bilbao. In Bilbao, our friend decided that her Golite pack was not comfortable enough, so she bought a new pack and was going to just leave hers behind. We jumped on the chance to get a free pack, so I have been carrying an extra kilo every since… We also still haven’t found any camp stove fuel that is compatible with our stove, so our titanium pots have sat unused in the bottom of my pack.

It’s exciting to look at the map and see how far we’ve come! My mom will be flying to Spain in a week and beginning on the Francés route from Astorga. Our plan is to meet up with her and walk the last few days into Santiago together. We now have less than a month left in Spain.

Camino del Norte Day 26: Villaviciosa to Deva/Gijón

This was a long day, over 30km by the time we finally stopped walking for the day. While the trail so far has been mainly flat or rolling hills, today there were two small mountain passes (around 450m) to cross.  We were sweating buckets in the very humid weather and were having trouble drinking enough water to keep up with our depletion.

We arrived at the Gijón albergue, which is located in a camping area abou6 6km before the city center, around 4pm. The camping has six small bungalows set aside as pilgrim accommodation for €5 per person. Campgrounds in Spain are quite elaborate, usually with big swimming pools, sports fields, restaurants, mini market, wifi, etc.  They are more like resort villages. The concept of simply tent camping sites (such as National Forest sites in the US, which often cost $3-10 per site) does not seem to exist here and camping in a tent at this place would have cost about €30 for Dave and I.

We dropped our bags at the bungalow, took nice hot showers, washed our clothes and then decided to walk the remaining 7 km into the Gijón city center to get dinner and in order to get the GPS track (so we could take a bus the next morning and have a shorter day to Avilés). The walk in to the city was pleasant, but there were only two buses back to the camping: 8pm and 10:30pm. We rushed and rushed, eating fast food and running through the streets to try to make the 8pm bus, but we ended up at the wrong bus stop (by about 2 blocks) and missed the bus. We were quite disappointed and not interested in waiting 2.5 more hours for the next bus. Instead, we took a different bus within 2km of the camping and walked the last 20 min. We were quite exhausted when we got in, and did a little work on the computer before going to bed. We shared our 6 bed cabin with four friends we have seen almost every day, 2 from France and 2 from Germany.  It was a nice night listening to the crickets as we fell asleep.

The path into Gijón is marked with shells in the sidewalk.