Day 22: I finally try winging it.

You may remember my whining about how this Northern Camino wasn't spontaneous enough.  Well,  I decided to do something about it.

Okay, I confess.  The reason I didn't leave the hotel until 7:15 this morning wasn't because I slept in or anything. I was examining my itinerary and the guidebooks to try to come up with concrete times to get together with Tina. Sounds very Type A, I know.

But, when I left the hotel,  I had no reservations for where I would spend the night.  In fact, the actual town was up for grabs.  That's progress. 

So I walk a block from the hotel and for the life of me, I can't find the Camino.  Finally,  two young Spanish kids walked up a clearly marked street, and I followed them.  The street scaled the heights that surround the harbor city of Luarca,  and allowed me to take this shot:

Once we crested the heights,  we were on flat, straight roads that extended into the countryside.  I started talking with the two.  They were Fran, age 21, and Nuria,  age 19, from Barcelona.  This was the beginning of the third day of their first Camino.  They had lots of questions. 

Cool conversation as we were learning each others names.  They ask me my last names (Spaniards have two). I answer "Francisco Rodriguez Galvez". Without skipping a beat, Fran says "Galvez? That's from the South, like Grenada or Almería." I confirmed that we are indeed from Almería.   Who knew that your name could give you away like that?

They also walked fast,  which I liked. I thought I was going to zip past them, but we spent three hours together. And we were jonesing for coffee and breakfast.  Nothing was open in Luarca at 7:15.

About an hour into this, we come across another Spaniard, Luis, from Zaragoza, sitting on a rock, smoking a cigarette.  Like a line from the movies, he says in Spanish "What does a guy have to do to get a cup of coffee around here?"

See? It's not just me.  The three of us walked for two hours all we talked about was café con leche.

We were getting obsessed.   It was after 10 and over 13 kilometers from Luarca when we found a café in the town of Villapedre.   I ordered the largest slice of Spanish Omelet ever sold. 

Slightly embarrassed by how much I'd just eaten,  I begged my leave and said that I'd see them on the road. I had some calories to burn.

The original plan was to have a short day, 20 kilometers, ending in the city of Navia.  My traveling companions from yesterday were going to stop there, and it was likely that good times would ensue. (Plus Dave owes me a few beers...)

Navia.

But I got to Navia by Noon, and that's just too early to call things quits. I stopped for a Coke and pulled out the guidebooks.  The town of La Caridad was ten kilometers further up the road.

I called an albergue there.  They said I had to book on the web.  I filled out a form. I got no response.   I said "the heck with it. I'm walking there anyway."  Really.

I can't tell you how many times I checked my emails over the next two hours.

See a cow getting milked? Check email.

Walk through a corn field? Check email.

Need to walk past a cool looking church with the sea in the background?  Check email.

Finally,  after 2 PM, I got two emails and a missed phone call. (Okay, so maybe I made a pest of myself...)

I got to the albergue before 2:30,  and it's really nice. I think it has 15 beds total.  I was the first to arrive.  I got the first shower,  did laundry before anyone else arrived, and left for lunch just as the next pilgrim was arriving. 

At lunch, I saw Fran, Nuria,  and Luis. Now they're in the bunk beds above me.  Romina, the Ukrainian lady from day 19 is here as are others I recognize.   That's the Camino. Oh, and the albergue is fully booked. 

Since tomorrow's only scheduled to be 21 km, I'm thinking of doing what I did today, tacking on an extra town to shorten future days, some of which are earmarked to be really long.

Today's total was 30.65 kilometers.  We've covered 624 kilometers and there are 211 more to go to Santiago. 

I'll let you know what happens.