Camino del Norte part 2: 2019

• 

We have seen this several times now, this was the first. The saucer has the “spill” painted on. (The scum inside the cup is real.)

Speaking of credit cards we stayed in one place this trip and paid cash. They didn’t take our passport and we didn’t even give our name. No receipt, of course. I’m not sure the Spanish tax authorities will see that transaction.

• 

We have seen the poster numerous times. Each person can interpret it in their own way. I was captivated by it.

Normally on our trips we reserve the first and last day and nothing else until the day before, but right now we have the next 12 days reserved. Why? Two words: Semana Santa, which is a big thing in Spain. That’s a week the Spanish take off work and they like to go to the ocean.

Normally I am the cockeyed optimist in the marriage and Wynette is the Mistress of the worst-case scenario. She was worried about Semana Santa so, two weeks before we left, we tried making a few reservations and things were full. We eventually made reservations all the way through April 22. Semana Santa includes the Monday after Easter.

We will be in a medium-small town, San Ciprao, for Easter and we hope to catch some of the processions all during SS.

A few years ago we were on the Italian Riviera at Easter and Wynette literally called 30 places for a reservation and there was none to be had. We ended up staying in Bergamo, way inland.

Post by Wynette: On the first part of this walk, most houses had red clay tile roofs, but now they are mostly black slate. Sometimes they use red clay on the ridge lines. As mentioned before, we see dozens of hórreos every day. They were used in the past to store crops, to keep them dry and protected from rodents. The closest thing we have to these in the states, that I know of, is a corn crib. Now I think the hórreos are used mostly for storage. Many are very old and ramshackle. We’ve started seeing little dollhouse-sized ones that are close replicas of the big ones. Very cute. Note also in above photo the Camino shell on house wall and statue of St. James (Santiago). I imagine it is a source of pride to live on Camino.

Post by Wynette: We walked 7.2 miles today. That includes 2 km round-trip to/from the laundry after we got to Navia. And we didn’t get lost or anything, so it was an easy day. Mostly on quiet roads like above photo. A little was on muddy trails through a pretty bosque and about 100 yards was through a field on an 8 inch wide trail pushing through what we are pretty sure were stinging nettles. (Photo below.) Our legs were stinging a bit at the end, even though we had on long pants. Still feel a little itchy. I can’t imagine going through there in shorts. Surely they mow a larger path through this section in the busy, warmer season. As Charlie said, it was very nettlesome.

Navia is a little town of 10,000. Towns this size in this part of Spain are so vibrant and alive. Of course, they seem huge to us after the tiny villages we walk through. Below is the ayuntamiento, or city hall.

We checked into our hotel then walked to restaurant for a delicious menu del día and then walked to the laundry which was in a large supermarket. The sign in photo below says While you do your shopping or have a coffee, do your washing.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/XrhCqiiL46bDPFTg6

Post by Wynette: We walked 9 miles today. We spent an anxious 45 minutes on a tiny fraction of those miles. We sort of got lost. We have some GPS tracks that supposedly someone else has walked before and labeled as the Camino. We came to a fork where the Camino went right and our track went left. The track looked much more direct so we decided to follow the track.

The track took us over the large A8 freeway where the A8 went way below us through a long tunnel. This was a rugged dirt road we were on, but so far so good. Then the GPS track took us to a 50 yard long concrete tunnel that went under the A8, far below the A8. (We couldn’t even hear the A8 at this point.) It looked as though no one had gone this way for a long time, but we’d already come down a long downhill to get here and didn’t want to backtrack.

So we went into the dark tunnel. Even though we weren’t far from the A8, it seemed miles away and everything seemed remote and foresty. Of course, we figured there’d be a nice trail at the end of the tunnel. There was a walkway through the tunnel with a small stream flowing beside it. We couldn’t see but used our phone flashlight. We finally got to the other end. The walkway ended and the stream widened and we discovered there was no path at the end of the tunnel. Only a thicket of spiny gorse and thorny blackberries. At first it seemed impassable but man we didn’t want to backtrack at this point. We could tell from our Google map that there was a trail not far away. We managed to find a path of sorts through the thicket. We were wearing our rain coats and that helped.

After pushing through this for about 15 minutes we spotted a more open area down the hillside. Charlie headed for it and, because the hillside was uneven and he was top-heavy with his backpack, he fell down twice. There was so much vegetation it cushioned his falls. Luckily no injuries. In the more open area, we walked through viney ferns for a while and then spotted the trail. We headed for it and, to our surprise, first thing we saw was a Camino post! The Camino took us down a rocky creek bed but the Camino never looked so good. OK, we have had enough adventures for a while.

Post by Wynette: Some variation of this stew is a first course choice on just about every menu del día we’ve had. I’m not sure how appetizing this photo makes it look, but it is delicious. The stew usually has fava beans, two or three types of sausages, greens, a hearty broth, and often potatoes. I’ve asked about the greens and they always say berza which Google translates to cabbage, but, of course, it’s not what we call cabbage. We think they might be collard greens. The Asturians are very proud of their food, as is every region in Spain (and probably the world). They often proudly describe a dish as típico, meaning it’s typical of the region.

Post by Wynette: We’ve always been struck how eggs are sold off the shelf here. I.e., not refrigerated. I just found this article that talks about various countries’ approaches to storing eggs.