Cathleen had more nightmares, while I dreamed about reorganizing my pack and map pins. lol.
Our clothes were still damp; some seemed wetter than the night before! It was still wet outside, but not so foggy.
I broke down and ordered a caffeinated coffee in the hotel bar. I warned Cathleen that it might make me crash in two hours, since my adrenals would probably still not be able to handle the jolt of adrenaline that the coffee would likely try to give them.
Cat was still struggling with the fact that her friends only saw her pictures online and assumed it's all fun and games here on the Camino. She had posted a message to them last night, but many still didn't understand what she was going through. However, she didn't want to write too much on the Facebook because her family was reading it (as if her family didn't know what she was going through--they probably knew more than most!). I laughed that I didn't have that problem! I posted photos of myself crying and puking! "Take me or leave me!" I declared, "family or not!!"
We sipped our coffees as pilgrims streamed by on the street.
The day's route was to Tineo, a town that has held a population since the bronze age. We had about 12 km of rolling hills to cover.
The route was sooooo muddy! I could have just posted this one photo and called it a day!!
(We had been warned that this section was very muddy, and that if it was raining hard to stick to the highway. After yesterday's highway experience, however, we were not keen on that option.)
I again felt safe with my hands full. We pass a silly shell house in La Pareda. Some of the inlay work was meticulous!
There were supposed to be vending machines in this town, but we didn't see them. We did pass a "dry" fountain marked 1809... well, perhaps I can a "soggy" fountain...?
We then passed a "soggy" Camino arrow, which looked like it was melting.
I loved this little yellow door with the "no wrong way" Camino arrow on it. Like a labyrinth, there seems to be no "wrong turns" on the Camino.
Each muddy section had its own challenges and victories: a few times I climbed up on the stone walls lining the path, holding on to barbed wire as my bannister.
Just before Beduras, we found a porta potty!! And not just any porta potty, but a full on functioning WC, clean & fully stocked!!
Beduras proved to be quite the treasure of a town, as we noticed the gutter lined with bright green gemstones. We collected several, along with some quartz and what I thought might be Labradorite. Next, we passed another fountain with a tap, and I rinsed off my treasures.
To celebrate, I finally polished off the end of my chorizo sandwich. lolololololol. I noticed the small can of peas I had bought for lunch, and joked "I can't wait to eat those peas!" (English)
Maybe I still smelled like chorizo, but a golden lab became my best friend, while his little buddy looked on.
There were vending machines here, along with another fountain, and we argued over whether the coin drop looked like JFK or Stephen Harper. ;) The vending machines had cold drinks, chocolate snacks, nuts, chips, and Halls cough drops, for some reason.
In El Pedgregal, there was a sign for a church, but I couldn't find it. I asked an elderly local man, "Where is the church?" and I understood his response! ("In the town centre, go right and it's big.") I located it no problem. Then the path crossed the highway, marked with a large stone cross, and set off back into the woods.
Just past El Pedgregal, we stopped at a closed food cart, where the bad mud started up again. Two ladies, from Spain and Chile, were already seated on the short wall beside the little house there. The lady from Spain was surprised to hear I fun Vancouver Canada, as she had just visited Vancouver in Dec!
A very persistent cat family tried to eat our food, but Cathleen came up with an ingenious solution! ;)
As they crawled all around, us, I saw that one of the cats cat had a tick. Even though my tights and skirt were already treated with permethrin, I doused myself with DEET as well.
We watched the two ladies negotiate the muddy trail, and did not anticipate resuming our walk. Every step in the mud had to be slow and calculated, lest we slid and fell. It was hard on both the brain and body.
In the end, it took us 2.5-3 hours to get through the first 6 km of our day (including our lunch break). So disheartening!!
When we finally got past the muddiest sections, I picked up the pace, trying to get my walking therapy. It felt really good to walk a natural pace.
Happy dude Jesus gave me the thumbs up as I passed. Maybe I was getting stronger, I mused, as that I barely felt the weight of my pack.
About 2.2km from the Tineo albergue, at Santa Eulalia de Tineo, we met a Spanish guy named Carlos at the picnic benches, nursing a sore knee. Cat have him some of her arnica lotion.
There was one more really bad patch mud before the road cleared again. To steady myself while balancing the overgrown digress of the road, I clung to the barbed wire embedded in blackberry brambles. Of course, this is where I dropped my umbrella into the mud. It's the "last mud" rule. ;)
Even with that bad patch, we covered our last 6 km in 1.5 hours! What a difference from our first 6 km.
At the outskirts of Tineo, there was a fountain and a place for pilgrims to soak their feet. I stopped to admire the church Ermita de San Roque, placed in a lovely shady park. Cathleen paused to wash her feet.
Across from the church, a kitten darted into some ruins. I had heard that there were runs an old pilgrim hospital in town, but I was unsure whether these were them. It didn't seem to be "in the centre of town." We skirted the northern end of the town. At that point, we were pleased to not have to drop downhill into the centre then walk back uphill our hotel.
While we were busy photographing woodpeckers on my camera, Carlos walked up to us. He was also going to Pension Bar Tineo.
We ate the biggest and tastiest meal for 8€. I was so full but I just kept eating the scrumptious soup! Food just kept arriving! We finally refused the coffee course. Cathleen joked: "And theeeen...? No and then!"
The kind hostess explained the local cheese us, and how they buy it in a hard dry form, then add milk and honey to create creamy desserts. Cat and I exchanged looks and simultaneously came to the same conclusion: the "disgusting" cheese in Salas! It was this type of unprocessed Cabra (goat) cheese!
We walked (or I should say "rolled"?) to the hotel, about 50m down the road. Cathleen and Carlos stopped to buy cigarettes, and I paused to admire THIS:
As Carlos stuffed his pockets with Kinder chocolate bars (very common in Asturias, I've noticed), I asked him: "Breakfast?" He nodded yes.
We rode the teeny tiny elevator up one floor in the hotel, because Carlos' knees couldn't take the stairs. We squished in, me last, which forced me to back out when the door opened. I joked my way out by saying, "Beep beep beep" like a big truck in reverse.
The first floor had a nice little lounge and bar/kitchen area. We called goodnight to Carlos and flopped into our room. The wifi in the hotel was just as great as in the restaurant! The best we had had since we started our Camino. :D
Cat's feet were wet, mine were totally dry. I laid in my bed a couple minutes clutching my too-full stomach, then went into the bathroom and puked up most of my soup. I felt instantly better. "No soup for you!" Cat called out.
Apparently, we had gotten to the hotel just in time: a thunderstorm began raging shortly after we arrived.
As I blogged, Cat was messaging her husband in bed and dropped the phone on her face.
Cat was still grouchy that people on Facebook were responding to her photos too positively, as if she were on a fun vacation. "The reality of my experience is not shown in the photos!" she ranted. I said it would be hard for them to see the reality from only photos with no captions or descriptions. She was still not doing any writing.
Suddenly, Cat told me that Sophie posted on Facebook too: she was in town! They had been corresponding through facebook. Sophie had pushed hard out of Grado, to try to get to Bodenaya, which was between Salas and La Espina, and as a result had needed to take a rest day yesterday. We tried to make plans to have breakfast together back at our hotel restaurant, which was right next to the start of the Camino out of town, but as of bedtime had not heard a confirmation from her.
The weather forecast predicted rain by 3pm the following day, and more thunderstorms, so we planned to leave a little earlier than usual and get to Campiello before they hit.
When the church bells rang at 10pm, we hoped they would be like France and not ring all night (like they do in Switzerland). They rang again at 11pm, then mercifully stopped.
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