6/5/17 – 23.9km/14.9mi from Soto de Luiña to Cadavedo, with about 1524m/5000ft of total ascent & descent.
Today was technically shorter and had less climbing and descent than yesterday. But, every climb and drop was super steep. As a beloved character from “Rick and Morty” would say, “ooooooooo-weeeeeee” – it was tough!
Today we were sometimes on roads alongside quaint villages, and sometimes on beautiful wooded and fragrant paths. As soon as the path left the road, we had steep descents, all the way down to sea level, and then all the way back up again. I wound up doing one more of these than the others – I stayed a bit at the bar where we had breakfast, and told the others to head out and that I would catch up. I left about 20 minutes later, and fully expected to see them either in the next town, or after a few hours.
But as it turned out, I took one of those steep drop & climbs while they took the road. As I came up from the climb, next thing I knew, I was surprised to see Keith and David! When the others arrived, I told them I teleported. Camino shortcut! We also came to a beautiful beach called the Playa de Silencio – its name possibly because of the natural stone formations breaking the waves well before the beach, making it a blissfully quiet place to sit and contemplate.
Later in the day, we ran into our Italian friend Giovanni, who we have been seeing almost every day for the last week or so. Turns out tomorrow is his 69th birthday – so we made a “peregrino promise” to celebrate well with him. The town we stayed in, Cadavedo, was small with not much to do. But our albergue, Casa Carín, was fantastic! Everyone got double rooms, and we had a massive kitchen. We took advantage of it by getting together to make a huge dinner with a caprese salad, brown rice, sautéed spinach and veggies, chimichurri chicken, and apples with Nutella for dessert. Oh and of course, at least 14 bottles of wine meant Giovanni’s 69th was a smash(ed) hit. It was a truly memorable day!
