October 3, 2022
- Route: Gijón to Salinas
- Distance: 32.1 kilometers (19.9 miles)
- Cumulative Distance: 528.1 kilometers
As I read my guidebook in the hostel in Gijón last night, it warned me that today’s route was considered “the most unpleasant section of the Camino del Norte.” That’s quite a claim to be sure!
This warning seemed to be based on the fact that today’s route would involve a 20-kilometer stretch of industrial plants coupled with roadwalking. Neither of which is particularly alluring scenes for pilgrims looking to enjoy the coastal beauty of the Camino del Norte.
With such bleak scenary in my future, I lingered at the hostel jn Gijón until just after 8 am, giving the cafes ample time to open on this Monday morning. I’d need my coffee for sure today.
DECATHLON
I wandered into a hostel’s kitchen/breakfast room around 6:30 am, and it seemed to be buzzing with the energy of young people. About half were walking the Camino, while others were here to surf or explore Spain.
One of my fellow pilgrims was an Italian American guy named Joe from New Jersey. He was in his 30s and this was his third time walking the Camino, having already walked the Camino Francés and Camino Primativo.
Despite this vast experience, it appeared he still didn’t have his hiking gear dialed in to deal with the rain and the impending cold days we were experiencing. He’d lost his warm jacket somewhere along the route and needed to hit the local Decathlon sports store in Gijón for a replacement.
However, like my unfortunate discovery in Santander last week, Joe arrived at the Decathlon store in Gijón yesterday afternoon only to discover that the chain was closed on Sundays.
Thus, he was delaying his departure until the Decathlon store in downtown Gijón opened at 10 am this morning. He’d need a new jacket, or a fleece, or some sort of warm layer as the temperatures eventually dropped. And this would be the last major town with an outdoor store that any of us would go through until we merged with the Camino Frances in another 300 kilometers.
I toyed with hanging around with Joe, just to see if the Decathlon sold injinji toe socks I wore. I’d picked up a pair of ordinary athletic/running socks last week (to replace the pair of Injinjis that I lost earlier on this Camino), but I didn’t love them. They didn’t prevent the friction between my toes that seemed to lead to blisters.
So I was still wearing my single remaining pair of Injinjis as much as possible, opting to hand wash them day after day and while I reserved the running socks for just the evenings to keep my feet warm.
This choice resulted in my remaining pair of Injinji socks getting a lot of extra wear and tear, and I developing a hole one of the big toes. I’d done my level best to repair the hole last night with the needle and dental floss I carried, but who knew how long that makeshift fix would last. I still had a lots of miles left to walk.
And so, I went back and forth mentally about whether I should wait with Joe and and head to Decathlon with him. In the end, I decided to let it go. Decathlon might not even carry Injinjis, and I didn’t want to waste an entire morning on a wild goose chase when I could have been hiking.
LEAVING GIJÓN
I said goodbye to my fellow pilgrims shortly after the sun rose and then began the walk out of Gijón’s downtown area. The first few kilometers of my walk was strangely reminiscent of walking through Philadelphia’s Center City.
It was a mix of both new modern buildings and historical ones, punctuated with lots of fountains and statues. Anyone who’s ever taken a trip to see Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell knows exactly what I mean, having walked down through that the eclectic mix of old Colonial-era buildings amid new glass storefronts.
Though the key difference here though was the presence of seagulls, as the ocean and marina just a few blocks away from my route.
The morning air felt cool under the shadows of the tall buildings, and I missed the warm rays of sunshine that I’d come to expect from my typical early morning departures. But at least I had a chance to stop and grab a quick cup of coffee before I departed.
After getting caffeinated, I walked west and into the sprawling suburbs of Gijon. Yellow arrows no longer marked the Camino route at eye level. Instead small gold scallops shells were embedded into the sidewalk, making it feel a bit like a scavenger hunt. Unfortunately, this hunt had my eyes trained to the ground instead of the environment surrounding me.
The tall buildings eventually gave way to residential homes, then slowly transitioned to a more industrial area. By the time I made it to the far edge of town and crossed over some railroad tracks, I was surrounded by factories and industrial plants with opaque white smoke billowing from tall chimney stacks.
I’d swapped the sounds of the ocean and the noisy seagulls for the raucous cacophony of machinery hammering and freight trains rolling by. It wasn’t exactly a picture of tranquility, but I’d been warned. My guidebook revealed this was what was in store for me. This lack of scenery was why several of the pilgrims I talked to this morning were just going to skip the 25 kilometers to Aviles by hopping a bus or train.
Just as soon as I began to accept that this noise and chaos would be my fate for the rest of the morning, the Camino surprised me by taking a sharp turn into the hilly countryside. The route wasn’t nearly flat as I’d hoped or as industrial as I feared! Instead I felt the lactic acid burning in my calves while I climbed a steep paved roads up toward a ridgeline.
The effort of climbing the hills fogged up my sunglasses and it left me drenched in sweat. The cool air was gone by 9:40 a.m., and it was turning into another humid, warm morning.
The ascent was eventually worth the effort though, because the route deposited me atop a tree-covered ridge as flat as a football field with a well worn dirt trail on one side. I could still hear the industrial sounds in the background, but the trees absorbed much of this noise, allowing me it ignore the commotion.
LEAVING MY MARK
After a few kilometers on the ridgeline following trails and hand painted signs, the path descended steeply down into a small village. The Camino seemed to deposit me at a church built in the old Spanish mission style, with a stone exterior and curved red terracotta-clay tiles on its roof.
A bench sat out front welcoming me – even though the rest of the church as locked up tight as a drum. Even the outdoor patio had black iron bars and a gate shielding it from curious visitors who might want to peek inside or pay their respects.
I shrugged off my pack in the church courtyard and went off to refill my water bottles from the nearby water fountain. Between the heat and the climb, I’d gone through nearly a liter of water this morning!
As I slowly worked my way out of small village, I the route took me past an old public washing station lovingly preserved by the locals. This lavadero publico was the second one I’d seen like it along the Camino del Norte, so I stopped to read the museum-style sign posted on the side of the structure.
This communal laundry station was deliberately built on a stream so that it formed two pools surrounded on all sides by stone slabs for walls. One of the pools was for washing and the other for drying. I took in the photos of women doing laundry here, and they only made me appreciate the modern convince of washing machines even more!
As I returned to the Camino, it took me through houses and out toward some farm fields. But right at the transition point where I returned to the countryside, I spotted an odd curiosity.
The concrete Camino pillar marking the way was covered in a heap of broken terracotta tiles with white writing on them. As I stepped closer, I could see the writing included names, counties, and years. And off to the pillar’s side sat a small black plastic basket with more broken tiles and a white chalk marker.
So I picked up a small chunk of blank terracotta and wrote on it before placing it carefully onto the heap of other tiles left by pilgrims before me. I’d never seen a monument like this, but if this pile was any indicator, I was impressed by how many people must walked by this exact spot over recent years.
BACK TO THE grind
My interlude into the quiet countryside didn’t continue for much longer. As I neared the 18-kilometer mark for the day, the Camino transitioned back to the dregs of the industrial wasteland once again.
Not only was the scenery dull, but I was roadwalking along the shoulder of a busy asphalt roadway that paralleled freight train tracks, warehouses, and high voltage power lines. Cars and trucks sped by on the nearby Autovía, while equally fast traffic raced down AS-19, the secondary road I’d walk for the next five kilometers of the early afternoon.
A small cafe appeared beside the road just as I began this stretch of noisy and semi-dangerous walking, so I decided I needed to stop for another coffee to ensure I was as alert as humanly possible.
What a change from the lovey path I’d been on for the last two hours (and the ocean views of the past two weeks). My guidebook was 100% right. This bit of the Camino would motivate most people to skip it entirely.
Just before I got to Aviles on foot, the Camino took a sharp right turn sending me across a railway flyover. The metal bridge seemed to bounce like a trampoline with every step, and seemed far too flimsy for such a substantial bridge. Thank goodness I didn’t have to endure a train rushing by while I was crossing it and deal with added wind turbulence.
On the far end, the flyover deposited me onto a paved riverwalk for the rest of my way into town, and I was grateful for the shade in the trees growing along paved path. It was turning into another scorching afternoon again despite the fact that summer weather should really be disappearing.
Sweat poured down my forehead and stung my eyes, and I was beginning to notice how utterly pungent my backpack was starting to smell. Several weeks of walking and sweating into it was making my pack smell like a mess. If I could smell it, what must people think every time I stop to get a coffee or something to eat?
Perhaps I’d try to wash my pack one of these days instead of waiting until I got all the way to Santiago. This wasn’t the backcountry where I could smell as ripe as skunk and get away with it.
AVILES
I’d made good time walking along the highway shoulder and paved path, even if it wasn’t the most scenic day to write home about. And to celebrate my arrival on the outskirts of Aviles, I decided to splurge for lunch at a döner kebab shop.
I typically don’t eat meat because of my fight with high cholesterol, but today it was just too tempting. Shaved döner, salty fries doused in mayo-yogurt sauce, and a cold can of Coca Cola was calling my name, and I indulged.
After eating lunch, I only had another 6.5 kilometers to coastal town of Salinas where I had a reservation for the night. But the next big challenge would be finding my way out of town.
Most of the pilgrims I met yesterday were only planning to go as far this city today, and it was easy to see why. It was a much bigger town that it seemed on paper, and there was even a municipal albergue with 56 beds. But crowds weren’t my thing. I prefer to stay off the beaten path and booked a bed at an albergue/surf hostel instead.
Getting out of Aviles was no easy task though. The signs leading to the town’s main square were readily apparent, but then somehow I repeatedly lost the arrows on the way out of town. I had to pull up my GPS more than once to find the correct route as the Camino took convoluted detours past several churches and through a street fair.
The churches were architecturally stunning, even if the route was a nightmare to follow. And I eventually worked my way toward the northwestern hills that separated Aviles from the ocean.
SURF TOWN
As the Camino climbed the steep hills, the arrows and scallop shells suddenly reappeared, and I knew I was back on track. After passing through a maze of homes I made it out to a scenic overlook where I could see the ocean once again.
A series of five tall, evenly spaced buildings dominated the skyline at the water’s edge. And Salinas appeared to be the exact opposite of Aviles. It had a quiet beach vibe rather than the hustle and bustle of a medium-sized town.
It was a hot afternoon when I finally arrived, but the ocean breeze made it feel tolerable as I made my way to one of the towers on the beach watching the giant waves break. Then it was just a short walk to Pez Escorpion – the surf school/hostel/albergue where I had my evening reservation.
Based on the hostel’s name and location, I expected the place to be completely full of surfers. But it wasn’t. In fact it was super quiet with only one other guest that evening – a very quirky woman from Austria who was also walking the Camino.
She spent much of the early evening complaining to me about the pain in her hips, and how heavy her pack felt, and the lack of lodging options available for the shorter distances she wanted (or needed) to walk. Then she tried to pawn some of the extra items she was carrying onto me, but I demurred. I didn’t need her half used container of foot cream, an extra roll of medical tape, or a giant bottle of sunscreen, thank you very much.
As she continued to talk about herself, I really wanted to tune her out. I didn’t have a lot to contribute to the one-sided conversation, and at one point I even turned away and tried to read with my earbuds in, but that hint seemed to be too subtle. She continued to drone on in my direction until she eventually tired herself out.
I thought I might finally get some quiet at bed time, but even that was too much to hope for. She fell asleep before me and immediately started snoring loudly while I spent the next two hours staring at the ceiling in frustration.
Only one other guest in the hostel, and I end up with someone who sounds like a chainsaw!
