Tags: travel
<< previousWe departed early, after a short breakfast. I didn't sleep well due to the heat in the dorm. Aurora and Wesley left just before me, but I caught up with them after a while. I passed out 3 Spanish men on the way, more old faces from the first albergue. When they found out I was Irish, they mentioned James Joyce. I asked them who they thought was the Spanish language equivalent of Joyce. One of them said Miguel Cervantes. "Isn't he more the equivalent of Shakespeare?" I thought to myself, pretentiously.
More walking along the coast, passing by many fields of animals. Aurora and Wesley liked to imitate animal noises, which never failed to make me laugh. Wesley took a detour at some point. In his place, we were accompanied by a Chinese guy called Wei Tee (probably a poor transcription) who was working in Barcelona. After traversing more cliffs, we came to another beach. This one was extremely long. We followed it all the way to the end, until we arrived at a town where a boat took us to Santander.
In Santander, I separated from the group, which now included Wesley and Felipe, to seek out accommodation. I managed to get a spot in an albergue owned by an Asturian woman called Isabel. We chatted for a while. I told her about my experience at Padre Ernesto's. She didn't seem to be a fan of the donativo model. It's more honest, she said, to state the charge up front, rather than trying to guilt people into paying as much as possible. I agree! She also informed me that some of the construction at Padre Ernesto's had been carried out by prisoners doing community service. They probably should've mentioned that instead of talking about everything that "they" had built.
I shared the room with a blunt but nice Belgian man called Stein, who described me on a phonecall as a "kind Irish boy". He was from the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium. After settling in, I set off for the Santander lighthouse. My hip, which I'd injured a few years before, had been niggling me on-and-off since the start of the trip. On the way to the lighthouse, it got bad enough that I started to limp. I was worried that this injury would sabotage my entire adventure, and didn't want to provoke it further, so I turned around and returned to the city centre. There, I went to a restaurant called Casimira. By coincidence, Johann and Joepke, the Dutch couple, walked past as I was sitting down to eat. They joined me for dinner and we had a nice conversation, which raised my spirits after all the worrying about my hip. I ate a tasty tortilla de patatas (Spanish omelette) and a salad. We took a selfie before they left. The following day they would be returning to the Netherlands.
On my way back to the albergue, I ran into Ana, an Italian pilgrim who was in my dorm at Padre Ernesto's. We chatted about our lives for a while. She'd just finished studying medicine at college. Having gotten a taste of the unglamorous work that is done at hospitals, and facing several more years of training at a hospital in a provincial town, she was questioning whether that was what she wanted to do anymore.
The day's journey would be from Santander to Santillana del Mar. It was the longest segment thus far, about 37km. Despite the long distance, and despite the prevalence of asphalt roads, and despite my concerns about my dodgy hip, everything went fine. My hip seemed to have fixed itself overnight.
Like on every other day, I saw a lot of farms and farm animals. There was also usually at least one friendly Spaniard who'd shout "Buen Camino!" to me and other pilgrims as we walked by. I met a German woman called Maika who had started her Camino that day in Santander. I also met another Johann from the Netherlands (not Johann of Johann and Joepke fame). Johann and I walked the last part of the segment together, finally arriving in Santillana, a popular tourist town with aesthetic cobblestone streets. We went straight to the convent where we were planning to stay. It was already late in the day and all the beds were taken, so Johann and I (and Maika, who arrived shortly after us) were given mattresses on the floor to sleep on. Also staying at the convent were: Wesley and Aurora; Felipe from Sevilla; Marty the American; Nikola the monolingual Frenchman; and Stein the blunt Belgian guy.
After exploring the town for a bit, I returned to the convent to attend a so-called pilgrim meeting, hosted by 3 nuns. We introduced ourselves, and the nuns explained the purpose of the convent-albergue. The convent was founded in the 17th century, and in ~2016 began offering accommodation to pilgrims. They were currently employing 8 immigrant workers (asylum seekers?) at the albergue, to help them integrate into the community. We took turns doing readings from a booklet, and did a bit of singing. I'm not religious, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.
After that, it was dinner time. I ate a tortilla, soup, and custard dessert. I thought about how much more difficult the Camino must be for vegans. By this time I also had 4 very annoying mosquito bites.
From chatting to Felipe and Stein, I discovered that Felipe was the head of the Spanish subsidiary of a media company called Rosco (or something like that), while Stein owned a company that employed 200 engineers. I didn't realise I'd been walking among such high-powered individuals.
![Quote: 'El Camino es como la vida. Hay un punto de partida y una meta. Y, por el medio, ocurre de todo: [...]'](/static/img/camino/IMG_20231013_195112.jpg)
Disaster! There was a flood in our room. Maika woke us all up at 7am, to widespread confusion and chaos. Our mattresses hadn't soaked through, but we were completely surrounded by water. Fortunately, I'd left my bag on a table, and as far as I know, nobody else had their possessions badly damaged either. I was able to slide my mattress along the floor like a raft, and got to dry ground.
The cause of the flood was a massive outbreak of rain (and a broken drainpipe). It continued raining for most of the day. After heading out, my feet and legs got soaked, including parts of my shorts and underwear. This was when I discovered that my poncho didn't cover the backs of my legs properly, and also that it could only do so much to keep heavy rain off my upper body. I was physically tired from the long trek the day before, and the segment had lots of hills, so it was hard going.
At various points I walked with Johann, Stein, Maika, Wesley and Aurora. Eventually, I stumbled into San Vicente de la Barquera together with Wesley and Aurora. We walked past surfers and a beach-side surf shop on the outskirts. I was exhausted and thoroughly wet.
We checked in at Albergue Nómada. I paid for the clothes washing/drying service, and later went for food (pizza) at the nearest restaurant I could find. It was a lively town, but between my tiredness and my shoes feeling like wet sponges, I wasn't motivated to explore it any further. The albergue didn't have any newspaper left for me to dry out my shoes, so instead I used tissue paper. I wasn't sure that I'd have the energy to complete the 40.6km segment the next day - the longest segment I'd planned to walk on the entire trip.
I set out early after bidding farewell to Wesley and Aurora, but I got a bit lost in the maze-like streets of the town and bumped into them before finding my way out. We never agreed to team up, but we always seemed to end up walking together anyway, and by this point I felt very fond of them. I discovered that they were older than they appeared - Aurora was 38 and Wesley was 37. And Aurora had a 20-year-old daughter, which I would NEVER have guessed!
I felt well-rested, despite my misgivings the night before. We walked a lot and crossed from Cantabria into Asturias, greeted by mountains and a surprising amount of greenery.
We stopped to rest beside a concrete bridge. It had the acoustics of a cathedral, and we had a fun time singing and making noise under it.
We met lots of animals, like always. I loved seeing them, but I also felt sadly conscious of the suffering they must have been going through as farm animals.
After about 30km, I left Aurora and Wesley behind, because I still wanted to reach Llanes, the next stop on Buen Camino. My left foot was sore, but I foolishly pressed on, eager to arrive before dark. Unfortunately, this resulted in the emergence of my first blister of the trip. I had to ascend a mountain trail, passing through a village. Due to FOMO, I also took a brief detour to visit a cliffside viewing point.
I managed to reach Llanes, blister be damned. I went to La Casona del Peregrino for accommodation. The receptionist directed me to a restaurant called Agora, where I ate vegan Fabana (an Asturian dish) and vegan croquettes. It was very tasty and I left another 5-star review in my wake.
I slept, or at least stayed in bed, until 8am. My roommates, two older French women and a friendly German woman called Jana, had already left by then. I delayed my departure in order to wash my clothes, put a blister plaster on my blister, and rest up a bit more. I went to the supermarket at 9am to buy tape and gauze - extra cushioning for the blister, since it was painful to walk on it.
I was mostly by myself for the day, which was fine. I passed out Jana and the Frenchies. Also got a baby goat to eat grass out of my hand!
I got lost twice: the first time, I was walking along a road and missed the marker for a turn-off. The second time was more painful. I came to a fork in the route and took the branch closer to the sea, in order to catch better views. I was vaguely conscious from the Buen Camino app that this path would be longer and not as well signposted, but I didn't anticipate just how hilly it'd be. As I struggled up and down a series of steep hills, my phone died, and I started to doubt whether I was even on the right path anymore. In the end, I cut across a field and made my way back to the road. I was able to follow the road the rest of the way to Ribadesella, and the relief when I arrived was sublime. The upside of the misadventure was that there were some nice cliff views, and I spotted an eagle while crossing the field. I also passed near so-called bufones ("fools"), rock formations that launch water into the air at high pressure. The sound of the water being launched was so explosive that I initially thought it was thunder.
I went to a bar to charge my phone, reserved a room at the hotel Covadonga, and after showering there and resting for a while, went in search of food. It was late, and the one place that my map said was open - with decent veggie options - turned out to be closed permanently. I had to resort to another restaurant nearby. It ended up costing me €18 for a low-effort salad: a few leaves of lettuce, tomatoes, and some measly bits of veg. I also had the strong suspicion that the waiter was talking shit about me with one of the other patrons. Needless to say, I did not leave a 5-star review for this establishment.
During the day, I'd passed through the town of Poo. My nieces were greatly amused when I sent them a picture of the town's name on a sign.
I'd be happy to hear from you at galligankevinp@gmail.com.