Day 19: Llanes to Piñeres

After arriving in Llanes last night and getting some snacks in our room, the sun finally came out for about 5 minutes. It was a hopeful sign!

This morning we awoke well rested and with no major physical problems. We were prepared for all morning rain, but when we emerged from the hotel and walked down to the waterfront it was only partly cloudy and the wind was gone. The weather has finally changed and it’s going to be partially sunny for the next 5 days! We stopped at the local bar and got a very nice double shot expresso with milk and a little pintxo/sandwich that was a great start to the morning. We headed up out of town and onto lovely little winding roads through rural areas and tiny towns and hamlets. We wore our sandals as the boots were still soaked.

We made a couple of small mistakes following the path. It’s not always well marked, or some local businesses falsely mark the street to come to their business! Nice trick. As we managed to reconnect with the true Camino we ran into Denise, the Czech woman. She is a very strong and tall hiker though and routinely walks 30km per day, so she said good bye and took off ahead of us. We continued on, stopping at a couple of pleasant spots. At one overlook of the sea, we met a French man and his girlfriend traveling by VW bus or something similar. He is an artist and showed me something he’d just completed.

French artist and surfer, Tristan.

We continued on. The walk seemed effortless with the milder hills and nice temperature and sun. We stopped for a little coffee at the 3 hour mark and then for lunch in Nueva at 1:30. We’ve got the early afternoon mealtime down now. It was a Cider mill/restaurant and the menu of the day was only 13 Euros and included 2 courses, dessert and a bottle of wine. Wine and water are the same price here. I was confused by the menu because it offered ”Negritos con arroz” They couldn’t possibly be talking about people, maybe it would be black beans. Sure enough, it was black beans, smoked sausage and rice. We were super full and saved leftovers for dinner.

Back in the street, we decided to look for a supermarket. Bad idea. We forgot that supermarkets close from 2 to 5 in Spain. Uggh. We would need something when we got to our hostel. A nice lady notice us looking befuddled in the street and told us to follow her to her store, which she opened just for us. We got oranges and yogurt. We were so thankful for her help.

Soon we arrived at our humble lodging for the night, Llosa de Cosme, which we will share with 6 other pilgrims. We’ve been missing out on the albergue experience by not lodging in close quarters with others, so we are glad to have a shared experience with others tonight.