April 9, 2018

Day 4 on The Camino

Last night we stayed in the town of Tineo. Founded by Rome, Tineo, experienced its peak in the late medieval period, during which a castle, Franciscan monastery, and pilgrim hospital were all built, none of which survives. King Alfonso IX made Tineo a compulsory pilgrim stop in 1222. Today Tineo is known as a great trout fishing area!  

We had a choice to either walk 25 or 9 miles today.  Also, grocery stores were closed yesterday since it was Sunday..  So as a group, we chose to sleep in again and head out just before 9:00 when the Super Mercado opened, and save our higher mileage for another day.  

I was happy to purchase an avocado, cucumber, some cherry tomatoes, A bag of spinach, sliced turkey and cheese as well as some dates and almonds!

We trekked UP out of town and up, and Up and UP!!  It misted lightly at first but eventually we got a good two hours of rain.  And though the mud was not as deep or slushy as yesterday, it was along steep areas and heavily large bouldered inclines. Basically we were walking in river beds with the water flowing.  Not very deep or fast moving – but precarious nonetheless.  I am so thankful (and frankly amazed) that my body feels great and I have no blisters and virtually no soreness -yet yesterday and today’s hyper attention required to avoid falling in the mud was flat out exhausting!!!  Looking ahead and determining which side of the mud holes to walk on, whether to climb the slight hills edging the muck with barely room for a foot fall and often having barbwire and/or prickly berry vines directly adjacent, or whether to just flat out walk down the middle in the flowing water was very taxing.  And they were brief solutions as the location of water, rocks, mud, obstacles, etc. changed constantly.  I could make a hundred productive decisions and then one bad choice would end up fairly much negating them.  Oh well, it washes off…  And if my only injuries so far are blackberry scratches, I am inclined to call that good!

About half of our walk was steeply uphill with the other half very extreme downhill, and much of it in rain.  But the sun did come out a few times, and it came out as we descended to our final stop at Albergue Casa Ricardo.

So in summary, this morning we left the lovely hill town of Tineo, travelled through Piedrafita, Quintaniella, Santunano, Piedratecha, La Fayona, Vega de Rey, Berrugoso, La Tiendas and arrived at our albergue in Campiello around 2:00. 

Once again we have the place to ourselves – rare based on my experiences of last year.  We had a bite to eat at the restaurant at another albergue next door, Casa Herminia, and then enjoyed the afternoon, taking it easy before another meal (gotta stay fueled!) and lights out.  It stayed sunny all afternoon – YabbaDabbaDoo!!!

Between the rain, being into the woods most of the day and raincoat hooded, plus the fact that I tried to resist the urge to take a hundred more cow photos, today’s submission is low on photos.