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Camino diary, days 10-14

2025-11-06

A transcription of my diary from the Camino de Santiago.

Tags: travel

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Day 10, Tuesday, October 17th 2023, Priesca (28.6km, 291.7km total)

I left Ribadesella around 9am/10am. This turned out to be a difficult segment, with lots of ups and downs. While descending one of the hills, I went over on my left ankle and hurt it. Another annoying injury, joining the blister on my left foot. I didn't see many pilgrims, besides an estandounidense whom I recognised as the volunteer translator from Padre Ernesto's albergue. She was there with her partner and her dog, Coco. They were walking with another American and didn't seem interested in talking to me, so I overtook them.

Crossing a bridge.

While absorbed in a map on my phone, I got a fright from a flash of orange and black stripes in the corner of my eye. It appeared to be a writhing, snake-like creature, but it disappeared before I could get a proper look at it. I don't think there are snakes like that in Spain, so it was probably a salamander.

Maybe it was a salamander like this one, which I saw on a later date. (I couldn't tell if it was giving birth, mortally wounded, or what).

In another scary encounter, an angry German Shepherd lunged at me from the back of a passing pickup truck. It was held back by a chain, but for a second I thought I was screwed. Well, it wouldn't be a day on the Camino if I didn't get a jumpscare from an aggressive dog. It actually seemed to be normal on Spanish farms for dogs to be tied up with a chain around their neck. I don't think that'd be allowed in Ireland or the UK? Meanwhile, the cats were free to roam, and I often saw them crouched in fields, probably waiting for mice.

I stopped for the day at Priesca, about 3km from Sebrayo, my intended destination. The albergue, La Rectoral, turned out to be wonderful, with a friendly host called Susana. Also present at the albergue were: Jana; the two French ladies; 4 Spanish guys I'd seen in passing; Lee, from Taiwan; and a momma cat and her kittens <3 Lee shared his pasta with me - there were no supermarkets or restaurants nearby, as this part of the route was more rural than before. From my own supplies I also ate an apple, a pear, a banana, and an Alpro yoghurt (which I now know is on the BDS boycott list, woops). After dinner I spent a long time hanging out with the kittens.

La Rectoral albergue (taken the following morning).
The kittens, hiding in a fold-up chair!
Playing with my new bestie.

Day 11, Wednesday, October 18th, Peón (23.7km, 315.4km total)

The kittens kept me company during breakfast. I decided to break with the Buen Camino schedule, because my ankle was still sore and I didn't want to walk too far that day. Through discussions with Jana and Lee, I settled on Peón as my destination. It was at this point that I realised the Buen Camino itinerary was different to the one I'd originally planned, and I was actually a couple of days ahead of schedule. If, after reaching Peón, I followed the Buen Camino schedule for the rest of the trip, then my stops would be...

...and I would then have 5 days to spare, as my flight wasn't until November 6th. This was a relief, because I'd thought I was behind schedule, if anything, due to taking a day to be a tourist in Bilbao and due to my early stop in Priesca. I decided to roughly follow the Buen Camino plan, but maybe shortening some of the longer stages and lengthening some of the shorter ones.

The momma cat giving me a baleful look.

After a day of monotonous walking through the countryside, the other pilgrims and I had to scale a steep hill. It was challenging, especially since I was trying to keep weight off my left leg, what with the blister and the mild ankle injury. While climbing the hill I encountered a few pilgrims who'd been at the albergue: Lee, Jana, and the 4 Spanish guys. I also encountered... Marty, the estadounidense (American) I'd shared a room with back in the first convent I stayed at. He'd fallen behind and I hadn't seen him in a while, but he told me he'd caught up by taking a bus. There was something delightful about running into people I hadn't expected to see again.

A poorly framed picture of Spanish countryside with the sea and towns in the background and overgrown ruins in the foreground.
As you can see, I'm not a photographer.
Some bamboo (?) with a Spanish language sign in front of it.
"These canes have an owner! We're still not a communist country."

Lee kept me company for a good deal of the ascent. We talked about the political situation in Taiwan and the history of Ireland, and he told me that Taiwan has the best vegetarian food in the world. (To be confirmed). Lee was carrying enormous backpacks that seemed to contain the equipment for every possible eventuality on the Camino. If my appendix burst, Lee would be able to set up an operating theatre on the side of a mountain and extract it. If we were attacked by a military helicopter, Lee would have the ground-to-air missiles to take it down. His bags were so heavy that all his toenails had turned black from weeks of walking under the pressure. A useful pilgrim to know, for sure.

It was a relief to finally make it over the hill. I met Lee and Jana at the top, and we made our way to the collection point from where a van would bring us to the albergue, which was somewhat far from the Camino route.

A view from the top of the hill.

The albergue was relatively big, with capacity for ~60 pilgrims, but that night there were only about 12 of us. The hosts provided a tasty meal that included soup, roasted vegetables, and stewed apples. I sat at a table with Marty, Jana, Lee, Stefan (a nice German guy suffering from terrible blisters), and Hannah (another Taiwanese person). The 2 French women from the albergue at Priesca were at the other table. I told my companions the tragicomic story of Max, the guy I'd met at the start of the trip who thought he was being poisoned by the Georgian government. I felt a twinge of shame afterwards - was it wrong to use Max as a topic of dinner conversation? Stefan then told us about a friend of his who'd been in a psychiatric hospital for 16 years, suffering from schizophrenia after a weed-induced psychotic episode. And Marty shared that he'd lost his brother recently. The topics might sound a bit depressing, but I had a good time and enjoyed their company.

Day 12, Thursday, October 19th, Gijón (14km, 329.4km total)

The van brought me, Jana, and the 2 French women back to the trail in the early hours of the morning. It was still dark and I had to navigate by my phone's torchlight. An aggressive dog barked at us from the darkness. I was afraid to proceed, not knowing if the dog was loose, but my companions gave me courage and we made it past safely.

I walked the rest of the way to Gijón with Jana, talking the whole time. We chatted about our careers (she was a social worker), our relationships back home, Palestine, and the dynamics of our families. The genocide was well under way in Gaza, and a few days previously there'd been a "controversy" over whether or not Israel had bombed Al-Aqsa Hospital. Of course, Israel has since bombed every single hospital in Gaza without any qualms, which in hindsight makes the quibbling over Al-Aqsa seem pointless. Perhaps part of a propaganda strategy to contain the outrage while they ramped up their invasion and manufactured consent for the genocide.

So absorbed was I in our conversation that I barely noticed the time passing, and suddenly we were in the outskirts of Gijón. There we bumped into Ivano, a tall, bearded Sicilian guy who was on friendly terms with Jana.

We'd agreed to share rooms at the GoodHouse Hotel with Lee and Hannah: me with Lee, Jana with Hannah (rhyme intended). When we arrived, I had a nap, and then I went shopping with the goal of finding the following items:

  1. a rain poncho that would cover my legs properly.
  2. a new baseball cap (I'd left my old one behind somewhere).
  3. a new water bottle (my old one had started leaking in my bag).

Overwhelmed by my multiple objectives, by the multitude of shops, and by the abundance of options in each of those shops, I only managed to buy a water bottle before the shops closed.

In the evening, we (the GoodHouse Hotel Gang) went for dinner to celebrate Jana's last day on the Camino. The restaurant was called Puzzle ("Why is it called Puzzle? That's the puzzle..." - How I Met Your Mother). I had patatas bravas, and stewed vegetables with soup and seitan. We talked about our favourite experiences from the Camino, and Hannah recommended me Ghost Town, a book by the Taiwanese author Kevin Chen. Hannah was humbled by a spicy enchilada that she assumed couldn't possibly be too much for her Asian spice tolerance. I think it was a Mexican place, though, which was not to be underestimated.

Day 13, Friday, October 20th, Avilés (0km, 329.4km total)

My left ankle was swollen and sore, so I made the executive decision to take the bus to Avilés. I didn't want to risk any further damage from walking, and I didn't want to stay in Gijón while my pilgrim pals walked on, so the bus seemed like my only option. Camino purists be damned! Also, I'd heard that the walk to Avilés wasn't particularly nice, mostly consisting of ugly industrial estates.

I said goodbye to my companions. Jana was returning to Germany, while Lee and Hannah decided to stay on in Gijón for another night. I was sad to see Jana leave, since she'd been such good company the day before.

Before departing, I bought an icepack to put on my ankle, and some ibuprofen to reduce the inflammation. The bus brought me to Avilés by around 1pm. I went straight to the albergue Pablo Solís. It was sparsely furnished, but functional. I was joined there by Aurora, Wesley, Nico the Frenchman, and Mira the Ukrainian. I was also introduced to some new pilgrims: Tony, an English guy who gave me a compression bandage to put on my ankle; Kobi, a young Dutch lad who was suffering terribly from blisters; and a Russian woman who told me she'd decided on that very day to end her Camino early, due to all the rain. She had nothing to prove, she said, because she'd done it before. But would someone with nothing to prove feel the need to say they have nothing to prove?

The bunks in the albergue. Fascinating.

Aurora & Wesley cooked pasta and shared it with me. I felt like a Camino beggar, since I kept taking people's food and not giving any back. Since I didn't feel like walking on my dodgy ankle, I stayed in the hostel for the rest of the evening and spent the time chatting, reading and watching brainrot videos on my phone.

Day 14, Saturday, October 21st, Cudillero (28km, 357.4km total)

I left Avilés around 8am, after a humble breakfast of 1 banana. As I was preparing to leave, I saw a black rat coming in and out of the main entrance, squeezing under the door to do so. How kind of them to provide shelter for the local wildlife!

Aurora caught up with me before long and we walked together for a while. Without Wesley's language skills, it was hard for us to communicate with each other, but I still enjoyed her company. We managed to get by on a combination of basic French, basic English, hand gestures, and translation apps.

Started seeing a lot of these bad boys in Asturias. They're a traditional structure for storing crops, called hórreos in Spanish.

Later, I saw Aurora and Wesley again (and Matias, the Argentinian dude) in a café. I stopped for tea and a snack, and talked to an old Spanish lady with a cute dog. Since I'd been walking pretty slowly and wouldn't be able to keep up with them, I let Aurora and Wesley (henceforth A&W) go on without me.

My ankle was sore at the beginning of the day, but I didn't notice it after a while, possibly due to the ibuprofen I'd taken. I encountered two loose dogs: one was friendly, the other (a mastiff) wasn't. Mastiffs were a common breed in those parts, employed to protect farm animals from wolves. This particular mastiff was guarding some goats. I also saw a few lizards. I followed the route through a wood, stepping over and ducking under fallen trees.

One of said fallen trees.
The world-renowned Nondescript White House.

Then I had to make a decision: take a detour to Cudillero, a coastal town about 1km away, where A&W were staying; or continue the remaining 10km until Soto de Luiñas, the designated stopping point on Buen Camino. I'd already walked 27km, so I chose the shorter option. Cudillero was pretty. Its circular port was filled with boats, and colourful buildings surrounded it in concentric rings. The sea was grey, and thrashed about spiritedly.

Cudillero. Worth the detour!

In the albergue there was myself, A&W, Sergio (a Spanish man who'd retired in the recent past; he lived in London for many years and spoke English with a London accent), Tony, and Kobi. Kobi was only 17, and Tony seemed to have taken on the role of his Camino Dad, which was cute to see.

All of us, except A&W, went for food and drinks. I ate padrón peppers and patatas bravas, typical Spanish tapas. Some of the peppers were VERY spicy. Sergio slagged me for ordering a caña instead of a pint - can't say I've ever understood the supposed correlation between masculinity and quantity of liquid. We discussed various topics, political and otherwise. Tony spoke a refined English, but was mostly ignorant on certain subjects, like Northern Ireland. He referred to the Republic of Ireland as Southern Ireland, instead of just Ireland - a common peeve of Irish people. He didn't seem to acknowledge the distinct identities of the component countries of the United Kingdom, and was strongly in favour of maintaining the union, for reasons of diversity, economics, etc. Sergio agreed with him - countries should remain unified! Good thing there weren't any Catalans around...

Cudillero #2.

Anyway, despite their somewhat nationalistic opinions, we got along fine. Tony was a man of faith, and seemed to be doing the Camino for spiritual reasons. Kobi, on the other hand, was skeptical of religion. Seemed to be a bright kid.

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