28 km. Sunny and cool. Very hilly. I obviously did not make the 35 km to Cobrillas. Why do I put these things in writing?? Well I had good intentions, but my leg is making itself heard again today. Felt great until about the 20 km mark, then I began to feel it on the hills. Stopped and stretched, but no relief. That’s ok, this is a lovely town and 28 km isn’t nothing.
Started out the day having trouble leaving Cudón. When I left the inn, the road led me under a bridge that I needed to be walking over, but there was no way up. I was going to backtrack into town and find the start of the bridge, but a local having a chat with a friend nearby stopped me. He told me I was going to get lost doing that. He asked if I could wait two minutes so he could just take me to the Camino, as he was headed that way anyway. So that’s what I did.
Once the man got me up onto the path we began to chat. He was very eager to tell me about the town, which made sense when he eventually mentioned that he was the mayor! It took me a moment to dig in my memory and remember the meaning of alcalde, but I got there. My Spanish is still rusty, nowhere near the level it was before (umm…in the late 80s/early 90s, just a few years ago!), but each day a little more comes back. Anyway, as other locals walked by and he greeted them, I was feeling pretty special (VIP). Then he went his own way after about 2 km and I became a nobody again. It was fun while it lasted.
The first 2 km out of town was on a path running along a natural gas pipe. Once I hit the town again, it was busy roads through not particularly scenic parts of town for the next couple of hours. It is not exciting to walk these stretches, but the way I look at it, if you are walking across a country you take everything you get. There will be some nature, some towns and cities, some beautiful sights, some not so beautiful… all of the good and the not-so-good of what nature and humanity have to offer. It’s an all-inclusive trip. Fortunately, in this region it is hard to find any place that doesn’t have at least some redeeming qualities. You just need to look optimistically.
Once the Camino hits Vivedi, it shifts to much quieter country roads, and even ventures toward the sea now and again. I walked mostly alone today, although just before Santillana Del Mar, Anna from Germany (a new Anna) caught up to me and began walking with me. She said she’d been watching me walk in front of her and trying to catch up for about an hour. As we walked into town I told her I was stopping for lunch. She asked to join me, and shortly after we stopped, her Danish friend Linette also caught up to us and joined. We had a fabulous time.
Santillana Del Mar was interesting and is a major tourist attraction. It is a medieval town with preserved defense towers and Rennaisance palaces. On the outskirts of town is the Altamira cave, known as the ‘Sistene Chapel of the Paleolithic Age’. There are so many things I do not have time to see while walking the Camino. This cave will go on my list of places to come back and visit.
Anna and Linette were staying there for the night, so after lunch I walked on. I was mostly solo except for a brief hour or so of walking with Gergana from Bulgaria.
My last 3 km was up, up, up. Was glad to reach the inn I booked for tonight. Such a lovely host here. He took my clothes to wash them because there isn’t a laundromat in town. I put on the only clean clothes I had left - mid-length leggings, a sports shirt, and a puffy jacket, with my little barefoot shoes - and looking a bit like an elf, walked to the shop next door to buy something for dinner. Not many choices, so it was a delightful meal of salami, cheese, and bread tonight.
Some photos from the day:
Wow, you're doing so well! Keep going, you're nearly halfway (I think?!) 🙂