Day 20: Avilés to Soto de Luiña, 37 kilometers

Last night, I went out to explore Avilés,  and to find where to pick up the Camino in the morning.   I immediately got lost in the warren of medieval streets. I grew up with the street grid of New York City.  These old streets turned this way and that--even with the map open on my phone,  I had trouble. 

I ran into Luca, the Italian teacher we met on Day 8. He was coming back from the pharmacy with an ace bandage and analgesics for his ankle.  Sound familiar?  We swapped stories about pilgrims we'd separately met.  I regret not asking him to sit and have a beer.

Morning comes.  By now, you know the drill. This time I was totally on my own, getting out of the hotel by 6 AM.  Avilés is a beautiful town,  totally worth coming back to.  I barely scratched the surface.

A really old building converted into a nice looking restaurant. 

The Camino markings were really bad in the city, but got better in the suburbs and countryside. 

I had some interesting experiences today.  Take this one. I saw a good looking horse and thought, this would make a nice morning shot for the blog...

The thing is that the horse noticed me, and decided to walk over to me.

We had a brief conversation,  then he started to nibble on the bush on his right.  The thing is, early in the morning,  with nobody else around, this happened again at another paddock.

I walked through forests, along streams, through tiny sleeping towns.  It was quiet and wonderful.  Just after 7 AM, I got the the larger town of Piedras Blancas,  a pretty modern looking place.

Piedras Blancas 

I'm just getting into the town, walking on this back street,  the type the Camino always seems to make you take. I see this lady loading a delivery truck with produce from an open door of a building.  She sees me and hands me a bag of fruit, saying "Buen Camino". I got all choked up.

A block later I looked at the Camino app and realized I wasn't on the Camino at all, I was about three blocks away! I'll bet she knew that!

I found the way, and walked through some very nice parts of town and past some open cafés.  Another mistake.  You never know when the next one is going to present itself.

9:45 AM. The Castillo de San Martín,  about 17 kilometers from Avilés.  It was built on the site of a Roman fort.

But, hey, I was making great time.  My plan was to do two stages in the book, and things were cruising. In fact, by 10 AM, I was at the town of Soto del Barco, only 3.9 km from the end of the first stage.   I decided to stop for the usual,  (almost 3 hours after my missed opportunity) a café con leche and a slice of Spanish Omelet.  The coffee was no problem,  but the omelet would require a short wait.

30 minutes later, it arrived.   I needed to learn patience anyway.  The fact is, it was hot and delicious, maybe the best so far on this trip. This turned out to be a 45 minute pit stop.

Annoyed,  I walked through town towards the bridge I needed to cross to finish the first half of my day.  I came across this: the mobile fish store truck. 

I crossed the bridge, and walked up the hill to the town of Muros de Nalón,  and there was the fish guy again, in the main square. I'm telling you this because I didn't know this was a thing.

So why did I try to combine two days from the guidebook?  Because this second half was going to be short, 16.4 kilometers, but with a lot of hills as it connected coastal towns.  Oh, and if you need any provisions,  get them before you start.  Pshaw!

There were plenty of hills no doubt, but there were hardly any views of the Sea because the day was really humid and overcast with a 40% chance of showers.  Visibility was limited.

I'd been thinking about how on the French Camino,  there would be places to sit created by the people who preceded you and by the volunteers who maintain the Way. At 12:15, I came across this in a clearing. 

Of course, I sat down. I looked at the map. I was just outside the town of El Pito (the whistle).  I'll bet they get a lot of ribbing.  There's a restaurant there too.  Maybe I can get a Coke!

El Pito has a large school.  I was thinking about SAGE. Really. 

Anyway, that restaurant was closed Tuesdays.  No other day.  Ugh. I trudged on.  I was sweating profusely in the humidity even though the temperature was barely 70.

Maybe 30 minutes later, I spotted my first pilgrim of the day ahead.  I tried to catch up with him, but made no headway. I had to stop to eat and drink something from my backpack.   I sat on a stone and realized that I was looking at the sea.

This was the view. I had a juicy flat peach, some salty almonds, and some of my dwindling water supply.   

I started walking again, and as I turned the corner,  there was the pilgrim.  It was Gustavo,  who we met on the boat from Laredo to Santoña on day 9.  He was sitting at a picnic table, and better yet, there was a water fountain nearby. Things were looking up.

There were 8.5 kilometers to go, and we decided to walk together.  Having someone to talk to changes the whole experience.   As do views like this:

Finally, the Camino took us close to the beach... but not down to the water.  We still had another three plus kilometers and the hills were really getting tedious.  I never got that Coke either.  Gustavo spotted a sign "Refreshments 30 Meters".  What could it be?

Camino lesson: always carry change.

Gustavo and our rewards.

Refreshed, we continued the last three kilometers to Soto de Luiña.  We exchanged contact information,  and went to our separate lodgings for the night.   It was 3:30 PM, nine and a half hours after I started (darned delicious omelet!)

I checked into the hotel I booked online.  I've promised myself that I'm going to start staying at albergues again because that's how you meet people. 

I've done laundry,  eaten some free fruit from this morning,  and written this. After dinner, I'll talk to Tina and find out what the doctors said about her ankle. 

If you're keeping score, we've finished 556.5 kilometers and have 278.5 to go.  The question is whether Tina will be able to rejoin me before the 100 kilometer mark, allowing her to qualify for a Compostela certificate this year.

Stay tuned.