Day: April 6, 2019

We took the easy way out of Cudillero and back to the Camino. Walking out of Cudillero we saw what a pretty little town it was. Unfortunately we were so tired yesterday after our long walk that we didn’t get time to explore it. It would be hard to live there though, so many stairs and hills.

This was the first day we saw other pilgrims and we saw about eight.

We saw a lot of horreos, most houses seem to have them. Some are almost wrecked but most are in good repair. One was even converted into a guest cottage. (See above photo.)

We are staying in an apartment tonight. In this area there are lots of “apartahotels” because this is a popular area for Spanish families to spend their summer vacation. The apartahotels are mostly vacant now but some are available for even lower prices than hotel rooms. They even have washing machines. What a luxury.

https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/2019-04-06-cudillero-soto-de-luina-34929979

Post by Wynette: Whew, Day 2 was a hard day for me. Charlie did fine except he was anxious about me. We thought it would be an easy 6 mile day while we got broken in. We thought we’d get to Cudillero, a cute little seaside town, with lots of energy to explore. We took a scenic headland-above-the-ocean detour, not realizing it took us a few miles extra and that there was some grueling up and down. By grueling, I mean walking about a half mile on steps. And the same coming down. There was more up and down in between. Steep up or down is no fun, but steps kill me. We finally made it to Cudillero at 4:00 just in time to eat a delicious restaurant lunch before the restaurant closed. After that … crash in the hotel.

It appears this section of the Camino del Norte, while never at very high altitude, is rarely very flat. Constant rolling hills, some quite steep.

Above photo looking down into Cudillero. A bit more downhill at the end of the day.

Our track:

https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/2018-04-05-soto-del-barco-cudillero-34905089

Post by Wynette: Pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago often talk about Camino angels. Today we met our first on this Camino. We had a delicious lunch in the restaurant shown above. At that point we had walked 10 miles, about 2 more than our preferred daily distance. We had 2.5 more of a lot of up and down to get to our hotel. I asked the restaurant owner if he could give us the phone number of a taxi to call just in case my burning feet gave out. We really thought we could do the last 2.5 with no problem but thought it would be nice to have the taxi number just in case. Not sure how much I managed to communicate of that in my limited Spanish because next thing we knew he was hustling us to his car and saying he would drive us. He explained as we were getting into the car that the taxi would have to come from 10 miles away and would be too expensive. These Spanish people don’t mess around. And are so generous. He had a beautiful car with red leather seats and he drove fast. We were there in no time. Kind of eerie to arrive at your destination in 5 minutes when it would have taken over an hour to walk it.

We are still learning about the infrastructure for pilgrims on the Camino del Norte. On the Camino Frances (the “main” Camino) every tiny town has somebody who runs a little taxi service because there is so much demand for taxis there. Looks like that is not the case on the Norte.

Post by Wynette: We started in Avilés today and walked 10 miles. Weather was sunny, quite cool, and breezy. Most walking was through the outskirts of Avilés which is a cute town on the edge of a large urban area. We didn’t see much of the ocean yet but did get to walk along the long beach above. And finally came to the beautiful green countryside. Saw our first cows on this Camino in this famous dairy region and saw beautiful flowers. Both pictured below. And so you don’t think it was all perfect, will show some of the road walking we did. Here is our track: https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/2019-04-04-aviles-to-soto-del-barco-34878214

We had a little hail when we were at the Vodafone store (which took 45 minutes) We start going out an hour later, at 7:30 pm and it is pounding down hail, small stones but heavy hail. We wait about ten minutes and decide to go for it. Wynette is in her socks and sandals. There is half an inch of hailstones built up on the streets. This kind of weather must not happen much here because lots of shop people were looking out their doors and looked amazed.

It was slippery and wet. Not good walking conditions. But we did our errand and made it back to the hotel safely. Wynette’s socks were freezing and wet but the radiators were on and they dried quickly.

We always get a local SIM card for our phones. We use Vodafone but we always have glitches. We are guessing that Vodafone does not pay well and doesn’t get the best employees. They don’t seem to know what they are doing.

We planned to get the “El País” (“your country”) deal, 15 euro for 6 GB and 600 minutes; they have four different pay-as-you-go plans. We get to the Vodafone store and he brings out the package and it says 2GB and 200 minutes. We point this out and he says it is really 8 GB and 800 minutes. Apparently the plan changes every month and the package was a few months old. He installs this one on Wynette’s phone and she gets a text message about it that looks good.

He starts on the plan for Charlie’s phone and runs into a problem. He gets another package and has another problem. Finally a third package works.

We ask how to find out how much data we have left. This is a puzzler. He asks another clerk and they try something but it doesn’t work, besides having a strange interface. We try the Vodafone app but that requires you sign up for a Vodafone account, give your passport number, etc., so we skip that.

We get back to the hotel and realize Charlie’s plan seems to be different and it sent different text messages so we decide to go back. We step outside the hotel and it is hailing/sleeting. See the next post for more on this.

After a scary walk in the hail we get there and get another clerk who consults yet another clerk and determines we do indeed have 8 GB but says that there is no way to find out how much data you have left at any given time in a pay-as-you-go plan. She says to go to a Vodafone store any time you want to find out. Strange.

But our phones work and we have 4G data speed and lots of call minutes.

The trip from Albuquerque to Spain was not bad; no worse than you expect trying to sleep on a plane. Surprisingly the flight was not even close to full, maybe 75% full, unusual for this time of schedule optimization. Sure makes everything easier not being packed in so tight.

Last night at the hotel in Avilés, we managed to stay up until 10 pm but woke up again around 1:30 but got back to sleep and woke to our alarm at 8 am. We’re hoping we have our jet lag under control.

Addendum by Wynette: Above is Charlie in the Madrid Airport with our first café con leche of this trip. One of the best we’ve ever had.

In Spring 2018 we walked the first half of the Camino del Norte from San Sebastián to (just before) Avilés. In 2019 we are going to continue walking along the north coast of Spain from Avilés to Ribadeo. From there we leave the Norte and go up along the coast from Ribadeo to Ferrol. This is a not very well known Camino called the Camino del Mar (or Camino do Mar in Galician). We liked the coast so much we wanted to see more of it.