Time is flying by.  We walked for six days this week, covering 170km from Gijon to Ribadeo.  It was an interesting week, with three days of 34+km and some tough country.

Leaving Gijon, we started with a 34km walk to Aviles.  Our route guide described it as “probably the least enjoyable stage of walking on the Camino del Norte”.  We haven’t finished the whole route yet, but certainly it was the least enjoyable day to date.  Coming out of Gijon wasn’t bad – just a walk through the suburbs.  And the next 15km or so were through some nice countryside and up through the Monte Areo forest.  But most of the last third was along a busy highway, with semi-trailers whizzing past at speed, and it drizzled constantly.  Not a pleasant walk.

It ended nicely, though.  The rain stopped and the last 5km followed a riverside path through parkland ending near the Oscar Niemeyer Cultural Centre which sits on an artificial island in the estuary across from the historic centre of Aviles.

Neimeyer, who hails from Brazil, is considered one of the most influential Modernist architects in the world.  He won the Prince of Asturias Award for Art in 1989.  As a gift to the province for the 25th anniversary of the awards in 2008, Niemeyer designed and donated the Centre.

The 26 metre high, 1,000 seat auditorium, with its distinctive Modernist curvy lines, is remarkable – it was erected in less than one hour thanks to engineering techniques he pioneered.

The adjacent 20 metre high observation tower looks like something out of the Jetsons.

Aviles had a lovely historical centre, a welcome sight after 34km walking, even if it was sodden and silent.

The upside of getting the ‘least enjoyable stage’ out of the way is that everything’s an improvement from there, right?

Next day the rain had gone and in fact we’ve not been rained on since.  It was very pleasant walking, through the countryside with small villages and no traffic.  All was good.  Then came a challenge.  The route took us along some increasingly rough logging roads.  Those guys don’t stop when it rains, and some of the roads had been churned to boggy porridge with no verge to bypass the mud.

Eventually we hit a section where the trucks had dug the road out so deeply we would have been wading through waist high muddy water to continue.  There was no verge to skirt around.  Using GPS we took some lesser used roads which eventually connected back with the main one.  It wasn’t waist deep, but still a challenge.   Here’s where we re-joined.  Photos don’t tell the whole story.  This stuff was anything but solid.

The trail markers were sometimes obscure as well.

It was a long 28kms that day.

Surely that was the end of the pain this week?  No.  The following day, from El Pito to Cadavedo, we followed a really good path for the first 10km and then faced a choice – up, down, up, down over short undulations for 20km or the ‘high level variant’.  Our route guide said “discouraged for many years due to disuse and poor maintenance, this route has experienced a resurgence in popularity and care over the last few years.  In good weather, it is spectacular, offering sweeping views of the coastline and interior”.  We were seduced by the promise of views.

Turns out, if you add together all the small ‘ups’ of the popular route, that’s about what you climb in a single relentless upward trajectory on the high level variant, and then the same to go down at the end.  And the track might be better than it once was, but it’s still pretty rough and very steep.

For most of the way down, it was just a rocky stream bed.

But the views were indeed magnificent.

There’s an American joke told about Thanksgiving:

Q: If April showers bring May flowers, what do Mayflowers bring?
A: Pilgrims!

Think about it.

In our context, it seems true that April showers bring May flowers.  As the month advances and days get warmer, we are seeing more and more.

We thought we’d see more pilgrims, too.  But it’s been the opposite.  We saw lots of walkers in week one, but fewer and fewer since.  This week we saw between three and about ten walkers each day, and on the day of our big hike from El Pito to Cadavedo we saw none.

Once again we saw lots of random interesting sights.  Like this weird letter box.  Was it a mutant fish or a zombie koala?

Was this a drunken frog, a seasick monkey or a tired turtle?

A leprechaun masquerading as a pilgrim?

How did that bicycle get up there?

We spotted this defunct fountain featuring Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in a private backyard.  John wondered if the fellow in the middle was Biggie, the eighth dwarf who was air-brushed out of the Disney version.  If you don’t know that joke, it’s probably best not to ask.

Who’d want to be a bartender trying to remember the drinks list in this establishment?

Australian readers will be familiar with the ‘should have gone to Specsavers’ television ads.  We spotted this on a bus stop.  Styled like a movie poster, it translates as “A captain, some glasses, a ship that did reach port.  Seeing well is another story”.  Basically, if the captain of the Titanic had gone to General Optica, things might have been different.  Very clever.

Home delivery bread is long gone almost everywhere, but in some villages in Spain it’s still done.  Just put your bread bag on the front door and the local baker will drop off a loaf.  Accompanied by a door mat that reads “Have you brought beer?” this seemed like people who have life’s priorities sorted out.

This one was sad.  Eugenia Martínez Vallejo was born to a poor family in Borgos in 1674.  By the age of one, she weighed 25kg.  At age six, she had reached an extraordinary 70kg, so remarkable that she was summonsed to the Royal Court in Madrid.   Charles II commissioned two portraits of her, one in formal dress and one nude, titled respectively The Monster – Dressed and The Monster – Nude.  Those portraits now hang in the Prado Museum.

As awful as it is by modern standards, it was common in that era for people with disabilities to be considered objects of entertainment.  She was kept at court to be exhibited for the amusement of royal visitors, until she passed away at just 25 years of age.  It’s now thought she likely suffered from Prader-Willi Syndrome, a rare genetic condition for which even today there is no known cure.

This bronze statue of her, commissioned by the city of Aviles in 1997 depicts her as she is seen in The Monster – Dressed.

For our bovine loving readers, here are two candidates for ‘cows of the week’.

And we had some reminders of home.  We’ve seen many eucalypts in the last few weeks but this avenue was exceptional.  Impressively tall and so thick two people couldn’t touch hands around the trunks.

And some stunning bottlebrushes.

On our short day – ‘only’ 17km – we made it to the lovely port town of Luarca in time for a relaxing late fish lunch on the quayside.

And finally, on Day 30,  we arrived in Ribadeo, a port town straddling the river of the same name.

On our rest day we visited Praia de Catedrais (Cathedral Beach), about 10km west of Ribadeo.  Originally named Praia de Augasantas (Beach of Holy Waters) for a nearby spring thought to have miracle powers, its new name refers to the rock formations lining the shore which look like the flying buttresses on Gothic cathedrals.

The buttresses as well as other arches and caves are only fully revealed at low tide.

From a walkway on the cliffs above there’s a panoramic view of the whole stretch of coast.

Ribadeo represented a few milestones for us.

Crossing the bridge into town meant we had made, on foot, a complete east to west traverse of Asturias.  And we had reached Galicia, the last of the four provinces spanned by the Norte and the home of Santiago de Compostela.

It also marked the end of our coastal walking.  From here we turn inland and south.

We have about 200km to go, which isn’t a milestone but somehow feels like one.   Nine days to the finish.  No more rest days.  The countdown has begun.

This week:
Day 25: Gijon to Aviles: 34km
Day 26: Avilés to El Pito: 28km
Day 27: El Pito to Cadaveo: 34km
Day 28: Cadavedo to Luarca: 17km
Day 29: Luarca to Navia: 21km
Day 30: Navia to Ribadeo: 36km
Day 31: Rest day in Ribadeo

Total to date: 668km