Etapa 11: Llanes - Ribadesella (San Esteban de Leces)

The early morning drizzle forced us to wear our ponchos, or tents without poles. The newly paved road was still closed to traffic, so we had the highway to ourselves. We finally reached the town that Carlos had been so excited to visit, Poo. The path cut across beaches where we were followed by a pitbull, at first territorial, and then curious. Once again, Carlos had to be the beastmaster, sternly ordering him back the beach after he followed us up into the hills.

We played leapfrog with several groups of pilgrims, and ran into the two friendly Belgians we had shared albergues with for many nights. The damp Camino crossed a cool old bridge and a chapel and cemetary built right on a riverbank which was very pretty and unusual. Then up into the forest and to the town of Nueva, our planned rest stop after 13K. We really liked Nueva, a fitting name for an old town that is getting a lovely facelift. We had a quick lunch of the best bocadillos so far in a bar dedicated to Fernando Alonso, Carlos´ favorite Formula 1 racecar driver.

This is a good place to mention that we are not spending all of our time in bars...we know, we know, there will be comments. However, mealtimes in Spain are very late, lunch always after 2:00 and dinner always after 9:00. This is a tough schedule for pilgrims who have been walking since just after 7:00am and must be asleep by 10:00pm. The only places where food is available are bars which offer pre-prepared small sandwiches. As an alternative to the same kind of meal that evening, we stopped in a small market to buy rations of local goat cheese and housemade cured sausage.

The afternoon walk continued in the rain, in muddy conditions, for another 15K. Negotiating the path was tiring and difficult. We finally reached Ribadesella at 5:00 and decided to try to stay the night in a pension because we had already walked 30K and the albergue was another 5K west up a steep slope. Everything in town was completo, even the very cute and colorful pension which offered special rates for pilgrims. It was clear that we would have to continue to the albergue, which was in a town with no services, so we fortified ourselves with more bocadillos and some house wine before putting our ponchos back on and ducking out into the rain again for an exhausting last leg. Our legs cramping and our moods declining, we found the albnergue with some difficulty just as the hospitalera was locking up. She quickly let us in and showed us to an empty room full of our choice of bunks, the occasional benefit of being the last to arrive, our own room. 32K equals 20 miles, today we had walked our longest distance, 35K.