Take two..

We had had a stutter start, racing by train out of the sad little economically depressed town of Grado and momentarily back to Oviedo in order to stock up on much overlooked anti chafing supplies. (I won't name names...) The next morning had us back on the trail in Salas after a quick coffee and pastry in Cafe Berlin where the woman behind the counter sent us on our way with apples for our packs. 

We marched off out of town into the misty landscape, lush, dew heavy trees surrounding us as our sticks and feet dodged the many snails and slugs dotting the path. Since the sun remained covered, we energetically raced forward past curious cow eyes  and singing roosters. Our sticks and steps fell into a rhythm while our path became a tunnel of greenery fit for fairies and elves. We stopped for a quick lunch of bread, tuna and fruit before walking out of the beautiful hillside town of Tineo.  We followed a hill hugging trail of soft leaves leading to a descent through a forest of tall skyscraper pines and into a soggy farm, complete with adorable dogs as greeters. I stopped to scratch the ears of a little spaniel, his eyes rolling back in happiness as his tail wagged wildly.  

No matter how far or short a distance that a pilgrim walks, the last two kilometers are always the hardest and sure enough, gentle pastoral paths segued to a dreary stretch of highway leading us to the one block long farming town of Campiello. 

Occasionally a pilgrim can feel unwelcome in Spain, occasionally Spaniards can be extremely impatient or refuse to slow speech down for a pilgrim, occasionally a pilgrim can be frustrated by all the rules and etiquette of how things are done. However, the moment a pilgrim walks into Casa Herminia, these feelings of awkwardness disappear. 

"Dinner is at 7pm."
"What time is it now?"
"6:50"
"Shit!"
We raced through our showers and turned up with wet hair and shiny faces to a lovingly prepared dinner of empanadas, Asturian stew, lentil soup, salads, a main course of slow cooked beef with saffron potatoes and dessert of arroz con leche or flan. While in some places, the people dismiss the pilgrims as a nuisance, others, like Herminia, shower them with kindness and love. In the words of my guidebook, Herminia has built an empire based on the passing pilgrims. With a clean albergue, hot showers, comfortable beds, freshly painted cheery walls, and incredibly delicious food, Herminia's town of Campiello is a welcome respite, and as a reward for her love and enterprising spirit, Herminia will retire young and well!

We enjoyed our family style dinner seated at a long table of pilgrims, next to Joanne, a fit woman from Montreal who teaches special needs kids, Paul, an older man from Oxford, Dimitri a happy Russian, Emma, am English optometrist and the smiling face of our favorite pilgrim friend Karin. We chatted over passed heaping plates of food and ate to a point beyond stuffed. And upon heading to our beds, Ameya said, "yeah, I like this!"  

"We'll see if you still feel that way when climbing the mountains tomorrow!!"