WHEN WALKING

Home to Santiago – Day 61

Pendueles to Piñeres de Pria: 33km

A photograph does not capture the sound on this path, the constant roaring and crashing of the sea to one side, relentlessly eating away at the bases of the cliffs. On the other side, the high mountains shaped only by wind, and the only sound, the clanging of cowbells.

This morning I left Nuria behind in the hostel. Last night she was undecided about continuing. This morning she decided to continue, and then, after trying to find somewhere for her to stay, she decides to return once more. We exchange numbers. She has been a little gift of the Camino.

And the gift as I set out is Gustavo, whom I meet while contemplating a closed-in field on the cliff tops, an electric fence holding in some cows and one currently docile-looking bull. I meet him as I’m turning back, but then I ask if I can follow him, and with the confidence of two, I pass the cows and the bull and the electric fence towards ever more beautiful views.

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” he says. “Not for the legs, just to make any progress when there’s so much beauty around you.”

He comes from here. He’s out with his little backpack today, preparing for his Camino in Portugal next month.

“I made a promise,” he said. “It’s a spiritual thing.”

I don’t want to miss anything along the coast, and as a result, by half eleven, I’m still only two kilometres off my total distance, having done seven kilometres of detours to every headland.

At one point, as I descend to the beautiful village of Poo, I’m helped over the fences by a randomly sent Dutchman, and then, as I sit on the terrace of the café overlooking the beach, I am addressed by a resident as ‘m’lady’. It feels a little uncanny, but very appropriate for the village of Poo.

I’ve been looking at Poo on the map for a long time, and I really hadn’t expected it to be quite so beautiful, worth a visit in its own right. I thought about sleeping in Poo, walking through Poo, but in the end I decided to sit down in Poo and have my second breakfast in Poo.

A wise pilgrim said to me this morning, “We travel as old people, but we arrive as children.” I think I may have peaked too soon.

My coast hugging is taking a very long time, and I fear that the underwear I picked up for Grace, which she left in the room, will only be handed over to her when we arrive at Compostela in Santiago.

I stop for a drink, but as I reach the headland above the beautiful beach of Torimbia, I realised I’d picked up the wrong bottle this morning. Rather than the hydration drink I thought I had, I have the half-bottle of cider from entering Asturias. However, it’s cold and it’s liquid, and I hope I’ll be able to water it down sometime soon. I’ve been pushing my way up through bracken to get to this viewpoint, and I am not going to stop to think what I’m drinking now.

I’m sitting in a surf café by a beach, and I’ve ordered far too much food. All they said was there’s no shop or bar in the place I’m staying tonight. There’s a shop two kilometres before, but it’s put me in a panic.

So I’ve ordered a burger, the No Way Dude burger, which I think comes with everything, and Torrijas, just because I’m a glutton for punishment with my double R’s.

While I’m sitting waiting for my food, a pilgrim comes over.

“Are you a pilgrim?” he says.

“Yes”, I reply. “Do you want to sit down?”

But no, he wants me to look after his things while he goes for a swim, and so I do. It’s an easy job. When he comes back, he sits with me, a slightly less easy job. He seems to have an agenda for everything I say.

“Have you booked for tonight?”

“Yes,” I say, “I have. It’s a small albergue.”

“I only stay in places with sixty beds.”

He’s going to the same village as me this evening, the place you can’t book, has 25 beds, and I know for a fact they’ve all been taken already, but I’ll let him find out.

He tells me that England is based on colonialism, as though I didn’t know.

When he asks me what I do, I tell him at the moment I just walk. “Oh yes, very spiritual”, he replies.

His name is Work Hard.

“Seriously?” I say.

“Yes, seriously,” he replies. I know I have misheard, but he repeatedly declines to correct me.

And you are hard work, I think. But I do not say it out loud.

Shortly after Work Hard goes, I see Javier walking across the sands. This is an excellent replacement. We sit for a while while I eat my dessert, before setting off after a welcome, unplanned, elongated stay at the surf café.

We pre-agree that we walk together to see the little inland beach of Gulpiyuri. At Gulpiyuri Beach, you get a feeling that the sea has finally succeeded in its intention to break through the rocks. And yet, the great roaring sounds of the waves underground are somehow more impressive than the little beach they form when they finally gets what it wants and break through. A few people sit on the sand, sunbathing. The invading force goes soft when it settles.

We walk to the top of the cliff, mainly because the water levels of the beach don’t seem right. They are, but it’s reassuring to see the wild sea outside, still crashing away.

We’ve both spent far too much time walking every inch of the coast. But Javier is the guru. He will carry on the coast way and try his luck in whatever town he turns up in. I will turn inland to my albergue.

In the last hours of the day, Germany redeems itself in the form of excellent-Spanish-speaking Katharina and the newly appeared barely-Spanish-speaking but delightful Sven.

“Funny Germans? Yes. They are rare, and when you find one, you must keep them close.”

“Why are you called Sven?” I ask him.

“Because it’s my name,” he replies.

“So are we going to bed now, we’re not going to talk?” he says at nine.

I, like the others, am guilty as charged.

It’s a cute little hut of an albergue. Just the six of us, and although it was lovely, arriving just in time to catch everyone after dinner for a little chat, bed is more appealing than anyone right now.