Day 20: Piñeres to La Isla

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October 1, 2022.

Today we crossed an important landmark — we’ve passed the halfway mark in the 850 km walk to Santiago Campostela. But today’s walk of 30 km was not easy.

We emerged from our albergue(hostel) in the dim predawn light and used headlamps to navigate the rocky path up to a monastery where we could get some coffee. I was challenged to speak French or German with a man from Strasbourg, and it was a relatively short conversation 🙂 We headed onto the mostly rural farming paths that formed the first section of our walk today, and got to our first significant town, Ribas de Sella at 10 km where we found a very classy cafe, Vega, where we had cafe con leche, orange juice and a sandwich. We reasoned that there were few places to stop in the next 20 km and we needed a good bump in food and calories.

Two German girls doing the Camino in their gap year after high school shared space with us in our hostel last night.
Early walking through agricultural land
Alice appreciates the smell of rosemary that grows frequently on our path
A message of blessing from the Santina, who is the patron saint of Asturias. It’s complicated, but the vision of her in a cave in the 700s helped a Christian Visigoth king to overcome the Moors in the first victory of the reconquest of Spain. She is associated with the founding of the kingdom of Asturias.

After the port city of Ribas de Sella, we headed into an area of high end vacation and resort homes. The sun shone brightly and we started to be a little too warm, causing us to use a lot of water which we did not count on after days of cool conditions. Further affecting us was a wrong turn that took us a km out of the way way up a hill an used valuable time and energy. We devised a return route to reconnect with the Camino. But we did not realize that we were heading into an area with no services and did not have enough water with us. We had to restrict water and rely on oranges to keep our hydration to the beach towns of La Espasa.

Heading to the coast after many hills.
Classic food storage structures called horreos typical of Asturias. Because of the mountainous land, food cellars are not possible. This keeps grains and potatoes away from animals. See more here: https://www.casas.co.uk/blog/galicia/historical-horreos-the-ecological-way-of-storing-food/
A series of spectacular beaches were popular with sunbathers and surfers.

We finally found a little restaurant in La Espasa and got hamburgers, lemon drink and a big bottle of water. This gave us a big boost to make our last 2 km into Las Islas and our hotel. We are far from a super market tonight so food will be sparse. There should be a good bar restaurant in the first km or so tomorrow morning. We are going back to more mountainous terrain, so will scale back our hiking distances for awhile.

3 thoughts on “Day 20: Piñeres to La Isla”

  1. Gary Nederveld

    Eric and Alice,
    Interesting the way you adjust to the demands of the Camino. Hope it continues to give you satisfaction as you rise to the challenges.

  2. grbocceman

    Congratulations on reaching the halfway point in your walk. You have met many interesting people and seen many unique towns and much beautiful countryside.

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