October 6, 2022
- Route: Canelo to Navia
- Distance: 27.9 kilometers (17.3 miles)
- Cumulative Distance: 616.3 kilometers
The rain rolled in around 6 pm last night, and it continued to pour throughout the night. This was surprising because the amount of rainfall I could hear falling outside my window during the night was about double what the weather forecast predicted for the entire day.
I’d spent the night in Canelo at an establishment that seemed to serve the needs of every kind of traveler. The upper level was a hotel. The main level held a restaurant. And there was an albergue on the lower level, though it was only accessible from the back side of the building (similar to a walk-out basement on a sloped piece of land).
After a decent night’s sleep serenaded by the downpour outside, I stopped into the restaurant for breakfast. I was sipping my coffee and delaying the inevitable walk in the rain when an older British man came up to me to give me some unsolicited advice.
First, he wanted to critique my rain gear. He was utterly appalled at how thin my rain jacket was and told me I would never stay dry. After that proclamation, he tried to tell me which side of the road I must walk on so I wouldn’t get fined by the Spanish police. It didn’t matter to him that I wasn’t planning to walk on the road or that the Camino followed a path through the forest around here. He wanted to give me his two cents.
I smiled politely and nodded, knowing that his advice was (probably?) coming from a good place. He couldn’t know that I’ve hiked thousands of miles over the past three years. Or that I’d seen far more rain on my Camino journey to date than today’s forecast would ever bring. I was not a damsel in need of a savior.
A wet morning
I departed just after 8 am, following the Camino as it led from the albergue and into the woods. The tall trees and the dark rain clouds obscured most of the limited light, forcing me to put on my headlamp to find the way.
Once in the forest, the trail immediately began to climb on a slick dirt path. Wet leaves coated the trail, making it rather slippery to ascend. It was only lightly raining now, and the forest’s canopy of tree branches protected me from the bulk of the actual rainfall. At least until the wind kicked up, spraying a flood of raindrops off the leaves above me and directly onto my head.
It didn’t take long to finish the short climb, and soon I was on a paved walking path immediately adjacent to the Autovía I’d seen in the distance during yesterday’s walk. The precipitation seemed to be tapering off. And truth be told, I may have been wetter inside my rain gear (from sweat) this morning than I was on the outside of it from the rain.
Before long, I was crossing over the Autovía on a bridge. Cars and trucks whizzed under me with their windshield wipers flapping against the glass of their windshield. I could see another pilgrim up ahead at the far end of the overpass. I’d caught up to my first pilgrim of the day.
Meeting Liva
As I got closer, I determined the pilgrim ahead of me was Liva, the older Belgian woman who’d stayed at the albergue in Canelo last night. She had a pair of pants fastened to the outside of her pack, which seemed odd in these weather conditions.
Liva explained this was her spare set of hiking pants. She’d washed them by hand at the albergue the previous day because they were muddy. And then she hung the pants up to dry overnight. Unfortunately, with all the moisture in the air and the rainfall throughout the night, her pants were still wet when she woke up this morning.
Truthfully, I wasn’t sure the garment would get any drier hanging off the outside of her pack today, but her feeling was the sun could come out at some point during the day, so it was worth a shot.
Liva and I kept pace with each other for a bit longer, walking in silence until we came upon an odd site in the middle of the woods. Just ahead of us was a Moroccan-style arched doorway constructed of bricks.
Upon closer inspection, there were actually four walls here, forming a large courtyard of some kind. The arch was just its entrance. But there didn’t seem to be anything inside the enclosure other than some tall trees and lots of leaves.
What the heck was this doing here? Was it the remains of a fort? Or some wall built about a home that had been torn down? You don’t tend to see a structure like this in the middle of nowhere.
A sign in Spanish was mounted on one of the walls, explaining that this was the Cemetario Moro de Barcia, also known as the Moorish Cemetery of Barcia, which was established in 1936.
The cemetery was for foreign soldiers from Morocco who came to Spain to augment Franco’s forces during the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939. This “Army of Africa” was made up of approximately 60,000 Moroccan troops, and nearly one-third of them died in the conflict.
Most of these troops were mercenaries (soldiers for hire), rather than professional soldiers or idealists fighting for Spanish Nationalism. They’d come because they could earn more money fighting in Spain than as laborers in Morocco.
These Moroccan soldiers were mostly Muslim. So they couldn’t be buried in the Catholic cemeteries. Instead, local cemeteries were established to inter them according to Islamic burial principles. Thus, what Liva and I were looking at here in the forest wasn’t an empty space surrounded by four tall walls. It was actually a cemetery from the Spanish Civil War.
DELVING INTO POLITICS
Liva and I continued to walk together for the next hour or so as we made our way toward Luarca. She was a robust conversationalist with excellent English. Our topics ranged from traveling in camper vans to walking the Camino, the war in Ukraine, and global affairs.
Then Liva hesitantly asked me if she could ask me something that might be a bit sensitive. I agreed, even though I had no idea what it might be. She began by telling me that she was pleasantly surprised by all the Americans that she’d met this year on the Camino. Each one she’s talked to has been thoughtful, smart, and extremely well-traveled.
Then she went a little deeper, admitting that we (Americans) weren’t anything like she expected. Based on her observations of our politics from afar, she began to assume the entire country had turned into a horde of profane, xenophobic, violent, gun-toting, MAGA supporters and QAnon conspiracy theorists.
Yet not a single one of us on the Camino seems to think or be like that. None of us were the “ugly Americans” she was trying to avoid. So what was the truth? Were most Americans crazy, or was the media blowing it out of proportion?
I laughed and told her she hadn’t offended me. The sensational people she sees in the news do actually exist in the U.S.- sometimes even in large concentrations. But despite that fact, they are only one segment of our population. The majority of us are ordinary, tolerant, well-reasoned people.
Besides, I wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t met the “ugly American” crowd out here on the Camino. Most of them don’t even possess passport to leave the U.S. They have no interest in experiencing anything that pushes them outside their comfort zone.
In my experience, I told her, it’s usually the more open-minded people who want to travel and see new places. Pilgrims are often the segment of our population who aren’t afraid to speak other languages or enjoy cultures different than their own.
She agreed it’s generally the same in Europe, but it’s difficult to judge from afar how widespread or limited a phenomenon might be. She’d feared all of America had lost its mind during the past 5-6 years.
600 KILOMETERS
Liva and I continued walking all the way to Luarca, sharing stories about our children and discussing interesting places to visit. She plied me for recommendations about places to hike in the U.S., which was like taking a kid to a candy shop. Where do I even begin???
Before I knew it, the first 8 kilometers of the day were done. We were in Luarca, dropping down steep cobblestone streets toward the small harbor on the edge of the ocean.
After a nice stop together for coffee, we parted ways. My pace was faster than Liva’s, especially on the hills, and the route out of Luarca would necessitate an equally sharp ascent back up into the hillsides.
After three full weeks on the Camino Del Norte, I had my hiking legs and could keep a strong pace. But Liva just started her Camino in Gijón. She was barely six days into her journey, and she wasn’t quite ready to race up the Camino. Besides, I planned to walk several kilometers further than her today, so I’d probably pick up the pace to get there at a decent hour this afternoon.
The next 10 or 15 kilometers after Luarca mostly ran through agricultural and rural areas. I walked between cornfields and tractors, then up partially flooded dirt roads, before heading back down them again. The rain returned on and off, and I had to dodge plenty of small mud puddles.
At some point in these fields, I passed the 600-kilometer mark of my Camino, but I was so lost in thought that I didn’t even notice it had come and gone. The day was mostly just a blur of gray skies and drizzling light rain.
I couldn’t even put in my AirPods to listen to an audiobook or podcast because of all the moisture. So I spent my attention visually tracking the brightly colored rain covers of the pilgrims ahead of me in the distance, then worked diligently to catch (and pass) each one, as if it were a game.
Just before 1 pm, I reached the town of Villapedre, which was less than two hours from my final destination. It was going to be a moderate day in terms of distance, with only 28 kilometers (or just over 17 miles) of walking. So I had time to stop in this little town at a cafe to grab a drink.
I’d normally want a hot coffee or tea to warm me up on a rainy day like today. But I’d just eaten a partial baguette a few kilometers back, and I was super parched. So I opted for a caña de Estrella (a glass of Estrella draft beer) instead of coffee to quench my thirst, and toasted myself to celebrate my 600-kilometer milestone.
The final eight kilometers of the day were the most uneventful ones. Nonetheless, this was when my right ankle started to bother me. The tendons on the outside of my ankle throbbed with every step. It sounded as if my right foot was flopping against the ground as my gait became more uneven and fatigued.
Today wasn’t a particularly difficult or long day, but for some reason, my lower extremities were starting to feel the effects of overuse. Walking 600 kilometers over three weeks seemed to be taking a physical toll. But I only have one more week to Santiago. Just hang in there, I told my body. Hang in there for one more week..
FRIENDLY FACES
I arrived at the coastal town of Navia by mid-afternoon, where I was greeted by Aurelio, the proprietor of the albergue where I would be staying that evening. He gave me a tour of the giant communal bunkroom, and I quickly glanced around at all the other pilgrims, hoping I might see Joe and Sebastian. But they weren’t there.
Perhaps they were stopping a few kilometers back in Piñera, like the other pilgrims I ate dinner with at the albergue last night. Or maybe they would show up later this afternoon. After all, they did need to walk a few extra kilometers than I did.
But there was also a chance I’d never cross paths with them again. That happens on the Camino. You get offset by one or two towns, and then you keep moving forward toward Santiago, paralleling each other with a gap that prevents you from ever crossing paths again.
After showering up and relaxing a bit at the albergue, I went in search of a grocery store to buy some more food for tomorrow’s walk. According to Auerio, it would be filled with lots of fatiguing ups and downs, and I’d need to walk 20 miles (32.2 kilometers) to make it to Ribadeo – the last town on the coast before the Camino del Norte turned inland.
As I made my way back to the albergue, I turned the corner and was greeted with a surprise. Joe was standing outside the door smoking a cigarette. He and Sebastian made it to Navia after all!
And that wasn’t all. Ken, the guy from South Carolina whom I met a few days ago, was also there. He’d linked up with Joe and Sebastian sometime this afternoon. Then I spotted Nicki, the German pilgrim (and medical student), whom I ate dinner with last night at the albergue.
In just a matter of moments, I felt an abundance of happiness. There were so many familiar faces around me! It was that same feeling I’d get on my long-distance backpacking treks when I’d see my trail family during our resupply periods in town. All I wanted now was to celebrate this pilgrim reunion with lots of good food and tall tales about our adventures.
