SARRIA TO PORTOMARIN

I hadn't liked Sarria the last time I was there, and I didn't much like it this time either. I knew why; there was something missing...a hole in Sarria's soul, and it was this. Sometime not so long ago, as the history of towns go, somebody got the bright idea to mine out Sarria's medieval stones and use them somewhere else. Where there should have been a charming old town, there were only fragments; a church here, a tower there, a bit of wall. Everything else had become a victim of the twentieth century.

Just as I was heading for the ayuntamiento, the town hall, to get my sello, I met the Oregonians, and was able to show them the way. The woman inside took one look at the backpacks and pointed...Arriba! (this made me think of Speedy Gonzales, rather than, "the place you are looking for is upstairs"). We seemed to be part of the rush of late-rising pilgrims. It was a real assembly line in there. Stamp! "Buen Camino" "Gracias"; repeat!

It was so cool to be able to walk confidently along the path, knowing exactly where I was going. Here were the stone steps leading up to the vanished old town, and there to the right, the cafe where I'd had tostadas and greengage jam three years before. Here was the overlook where I could look back over the town, here the convento with its palimpsest of styles, and here, oh dear, was the incredibly steep path down to the trail. Some things hadn't changed.

  The Roman Bridge was still the same.  The trail still meandered by the railway track. I met my first Camino horse here, wearing a shell on his breastplate. But my beloved backward time-untouched Galicia was changing. Everywhere, things had been tarted up. There were pop machines and souvenir stands; the government had been putting in a lot of infrastructure money too. I wasn't sure I liked that, really. I preferred to think of Galicia as a place where doing something like this:

which took who-knows-how-long to complete but which lasted forever, was valued; where people took a creative approach to a problem, rather than using brute force to achieve their ends;

where if you couldn't go over or under or around an obstacle, you just went through it.

Where creative re-use was valued:

I blamed the Holy Year in 2011. Where in Portomarin there were two hostels in 2008, there were now five, ranging from very basic to quite swish. And there were billboards along the Camino advertising them. I was affronted.

STARTING OVER

I was back on the bus the next morning.  I had a good feeling about my decision. I loved Galicia's green hills and cool air and atmosphere of timelessness.  The first time I'd done the Camino, I seemed to hit my stride from Astorga onwards, and I had time in Galicia to enjoy the company of fellow walkers and to feel relaxed.  After this difficult passage, I was hoping for a reprise of good times.  I had decided to start at Sarria; a town which I hadn't liked, but a convenient place to get off the bus.

I had worried about not getting up on time, having forgotten how to set my wristwatch alarm, but all was well.  I had time for a croissant and coffee in the bus station cafe before heading out to try and unscramble which bus of the several which were coming and going, all seemingly in the same direction, but of which, predictably, none seemed to be mine.  As I sat on the bench, a bit tense about the confusion, I saw three women straggle in with heavy backpacks.  One was my sort of age, and the other two looked to be in their thirties; they smiled and sat down.  When I heard North American vowel sounds coming out of their mouths, I couldn't help myself.

'Canadian or American?' I asked.  I would have put my money on the former, but it turned out they were from the Great North West, Oregon to be precise.  Ah, how nice it was to talk with some people from my continent.
We sat together on the bus, and I heard  about their adventures of the day before; their first day on the Camino.  They'd got off the bus a few stops shy of the station in Lugo, and had to walk up that very steep hill past the university to the old city, proper.  They were a mother and daughter group, and the two younger women had left their children with their fathers for two weeks, while they visited Spain.  They had a week to walk to Santiago, and then it was on to Madrid, to meet up with their husband/father (not a walker), and then to Barcelona.  How great was that!  Even though I was ON the Camino, I was envious.  How weird is that!

As the mother, whom I'll call Sheryl, and I chatted away, we discovered a shared love of gardening and the politics of community and inclusiveness.  My last Camino experience taught me that it was usually left-leaning Americans who came to do the walk, so I wasn't surprised.   The daughters were charming and funny, and the whole group just exuded intelligence and reasonableness.  Pretty soon, in my head, I was calling them "Great Oregonian Women".

When we got to Sarria, (still just as horrid as ever), I asked directions to the Camino, and showed it to the ladies.  We set off together but soon were on our separate ways.  We met up again, by chance, near the town hall, and I showed them where to go to get their first sellos.  For me, it was lovely to watch these peregrinas starting out.  I took a lot of vicarious pleasure in their adventure, and I was glad to be able to be a camino angel in a small way to them, paying forward the many kindnesses I'd received along the Way, both times.  As much fun as it was to be in their company I didn't want to intrude, and I knew how important it was for them, and me, to walk their own Camino.  I had told Sheryl that I was "sauntering" through Spain. Later I discovered, through Henry David Thoreau, of all people, that the meaning of saunter may have had a pilgrim origin.

Here's what he had to say on the matter:

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a genius, so to speak, for which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la Sainte Terre"—to the holy land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a sainte terrer", a saunterer—a holy-lander. They who never go to the holy land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all, but the Saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which indeed is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this holy land from the hands of the Infidels. (and by infidels, Thoreau meant, I believe, those who would despoil it).
 
I also know now that there is a World Sauntering Day, June 19. "The purpose is to remind us to take it easy, smell the roses, and enjoy life as opposed to rushing through it." The definition of saunter expounded by followers of this way of life is as follows: Sauntering is a verb to describe a style of walking; it is not a sashay, prance, trot, or lollygag. Simply it is to walk slowly preferably with a joyful disposition. (Thank you, wikipedia.)
I mean to keep that festival!

LUCUS AUGUSTI

I was so used to the  slow rhythm of walking that when I took an extended bus ride, I had the oddest sense of being roughly translocated, like being beamed down onto a strange Star Trek planet.  Here I was suddenly half way across the country, and although the territory was sort of familiar, it was still a bit jarring.  The early morning fog which greeted me shrouded the city in mist, giving the impression that there was really no other place than here.

I had no sooner stepped out of the hotel than I realized I'd have to go back and fetch my jacket.  I'd forgotten about the fog and misty rain of Galicia. (No wonder there's still a thriving trade in handmade umbrellas here).   Then I headed for a staircase I remembered from the night before when I was buying bread.  I was taking a morning constitutional atop the Roman walls of Lugo.

Up high it was yet another world.  Everyone, it seemed, used the wide thoroughfare up on the  walls to get around.  I saw teenaged girls, runners, dog walkers, and people going to work.

 I communed with pigeons and jackdaws, sharing their birds-eye view.  I could see the town within the walls with its beautiful slate roofs and well kept plazas,  and the town without, elegant multi-storey apartments, white brick excrescences from the seventies, and  even more run-down areas.  I could see out to the River Mino at the foot of what I realized now was a very substantial hill.  I could see the University and all of the suburbs.  There were churches, convents, archaeological excavations, and urban renewal at work.
As I rounded every curve, something new unshrouded itself from the mist.  Far in the distance I could see the twin spires of the Cathedral where I would visit after I'd had some coffee.  This was one tourist venue that did not disappoint!

Apart from the walls themselves, much of Roman Lugo, or Lucus Augusti, as the Romans called it, is underground now.  By the end of the day I'd seen the mosaics which once graced a fine villa, just down (and under!)  the street from my hotel, and had sought out the remains of the Roman baths, which were, in a word, underwhelming.  I'd walked down the steep hill to the Mino, and enjoyed the croaking of frogs in its reedy shallows. I was surprised because the steep ups and downs in Lugo weren't bothering my legs unduly.   I'd walked to the Library and written my emails, I'd had three meals in the same cafe, and watched a bit of live soap opera.

I'd had a really superb tour of the Cathedral from a sweet but insistent docent, who showed me wonders I would never have seen or understood on my own, quietly evangelizing as we went.   She spoke English perfect down to the ecclesiastical terminology we needed to talk of choirs and narthexes (narthices?) and other less than everyday topics.  She explained that the Cathedral was one of only five places in the world where the Blessed Sacrament, the body of Christ, was permanently present.  Mass is celebrated perpetually on the half hour, and has been, according to some sources, for over a thousand years.  My tour guide also showed me Our Lady of the Big Eyes, an ornate medieval stone statue.  We could only peep at her because she was in the chapel where the service was going on.  My guide pointed out that the statue didn't have exceptionally large eyes, and explained that the appelation was metaphysical, that the largeness of her eyes meant that she was all-seeing, and had compassion for all of the suffering she saw.  I got to see a spectacularly gaudy Gaudi altarpiece, too.

Everything I saw in Lugo pleased me because I'd made up my mind to finish my trip by heading on the bus to Sarria, the last town from which one is eligible for a compostela.  From there I would walk the last stretch of the Camino Frances which I had done in 2008, and which I'd loved.  I wouldn't be going to Madrid, not this time.

ON THE BUSES

If you are a people watcher, the buses of Spain are the place to be.  As we travelled through the mountains towards Leon, I didn't know where to look; at the sharp and steep limestone peaks on either side, or the life playing out around me.

For their part, the peaks were spectacular.  The road we were on more or less followed the route of the Camino del Salvador, which I had mused about following.  If the relatively gentle (ha!) Basque hills  had done for me, I couldn't imagine walking in this rough, nearly perpendicular country.  Well, actually, I could, and it made me sad to have to accept limitations on my adventures.

 The indoor scenery was pretty amazing.  Without moving my head, I could watch an extended family jollying a small boy of about two along.  He did amazingly well for many hours, being dandled, sung to, fed and chatted with.  In the seat directly in front of me was a middle aged couple.  The man was very attentive to the woman, who looked a bit stand-offish.  He was trying very hard to woo her, touching her arm, whispering in her ear, smiling with every ounce of charm he could muster, and showering her with compliments.  Boy, I thought, he must really have done something rotten!  Gradually, she warmed up to him, and by the time the bus stopped in Ponferrada, they were nuzzling and kissing in a most un-middle aged way.  I began to wonder if they were illicit lovers, and not a long time couple.  I was pretty surprised when they got off the bus, got their luggage and went in different directions without a backward look.  Two possibilities sprang to mind.  1.  It WAS an illicit affair, and they were worried about being under surveillance by someone they knew in Ponferrada, or 2.  They were total strangers!

From Ponferrada onwards, I was in familiar and beloved territory.   The rough mountains gave way to forested hills as the highway cut through mountains and travelled  on viaducts alongside high reservoirs. The setting sun lit up the vibrant colours of El Bierzo which I loved so well on my previous walk...orange soil, purple heather, blue hills and gleaming slate.  It was like old home week.  It was amusing to see again the fancy house in Villafranca where the guard mastiff had surprised the heck out of me by lunging up a couple of metres to try to snag my calf, and to follow myself in memory along the single street in Trabadelo, or remember meeting Riem in the roadside cafe a little further along.  Of course I was seeing all of this from the Autovia, so it was tiny, dollhouse memory.   We even took a little side trip into Pedrafitta do Cebreiro, on the back side of the huge hill it had taken me half a day to climb three years before.  I prefer not to think about how easy it was for the bus to get up there.  When we got to Lugo, it was late afternoon; lots of time left to walk about and then find something to eat. I had some difficulty finding the Hotel I had chosen . I must have walked around its block three or four times before I saw it sitting discreetly just where it should be.


It was every bit as charming as it advertised itself to be, and a perfect place to lick my psychic wounds and to see the town.  I'd been fascinated by the idea that the walls of the town were nearly 2000 years old ever since I'd heard of it three years before.  If I had such a thing as a bucket list, Lugo would be on it.

A WOMAN'S RIGHT

Is to change her mind and I did.  Despite a day of great walking,
( though not far, since I started at mid-day),  I got as far as Escamplero and,  while sitting at an outdoor cafe there, I started to have a change of heart.  The whole thing just felt wrong.  I was tired of feeling not quite clean, not quite dry, not quite warm, not quite well, (my cough had returned with a vengeance)  not quite fed and it would only get more difficult to extricate myself from all of that the further into the Primitivo I got.  At the albergue, a sign told me that the monastery I wanted to stay at the next night was closed for a fishing tournament.  That was probably the thing that made up my mind for me.  Even though I met a lot of really nice peregrinos that night, it wasn't enough to make me want to carry on. As I lay there in the damp and chilly dark, I thought about what I did and didn't care about.  The things I wanted were to see Lugo, and to see the friends from Canada I'd arranged to meet in Santiago.    One eensy weensy part of me also wanted a compostela, so I decided to take a bus from Lugo and start walking again there.  


The next morning I waited a few hours for a bus out of Escamplero back to Oviedo.  The stop, by the way, was not at the stop, but by a milestone on the far side of a different road than posted.  Thank goodness I´m not afraid to ask stupid questions. I had lots of time to think about my decision, and to feel defeated and defiant by turns.

  When I got back to Oviedo, I went to a locutorio  where I saw that Anna had eventually got back to me, and was heartbroken that she had missed my emails.  Apparently it was a big fiesta there (ye gods, these people love to party, and to smoke too much and eat too much fried food.  Its a wonder that they´re not dropping like flies by the roadside.  But no, they walk up and down mountains for fun, fuming as they go!)  But for me, the die was cast.  There wasn't quite enough time to do what I'd decided and go to Madrid too.  I'd already bought the ticket to Lugo.

A FAIRY TALE

"Oviedo is Delicious, Exotic, Beautiful, Clean, Pleasant, Peaceful, and Kind to Pedestrians. It's as if it doesn't belong to this world, as if it could not possibly exist ... Oviedo is like a Fairy Tale"

Woody Allen had it right!  He filmed part of Vicky Christina Barcelona in Oviedo, and the city fathers added his image in bronze to their amazing catalogue of public art.  I met him, quite by accident one early rainy morning.

I could add Intoxicating, Fascinating, and WET to his description.

I spent two nights and the best part of three days in Oviedo, while I tried to decide what to do with the rest of my trip.  Anna had invited me to visit her in Madrid and I sent her quite a few emails from the public library while checking out train and bus connections from Oviedo.  I was there every time it opened, and I started to feel like one of the gang of old men who congregated by the door, chafing to get in and read the papers.

  I was more and more loathe to attempt the Camino Primitivo.  What if I found I couldn't do those huge downhills and I was stuck in the middle of nowhere with no way to get back?  (In retrospect, I see that it was a silly fear.  I might not have been able to cope with the hills, but I'm pretty sure I could have found my way out by bus or taxi or somebody's uncle's cattle truck).  I still wanted those mountain vistas, and the chance to see a bear, but I was beginning to think that seeing the capital, with its parks and museums and cosmopolitan life, especially in the company of Anna, might be a good second choice.  But while I was waiting for her reply, I could enjoy the sights and sounds of this pretty little city.

  I saw folk dancing in the square, people in their wedding finery in the Plaza de la Constitucion, visited markets and the FREE art gallery, where you could take pictures as long as you didn't use flash.  There were Roman traces if you looked, and in the Camara Santa, the eighth century tower which forms the  foundation of the huge Cathedral, I found myself wishing I lived in Oviedo, so I would have time to sit and sketch the elongated forms of the apostles, carved in crisp limestone.  I wandered the sopping streets early in the morning, discovering the gorgeous Campo de San Francisco right in the heart of the town.

When I first arrived, I found the albergue (eventually) down one of the streets near the cathedral, but it looked damp and didn't open for hours, so I looked up a small hostal that I'd written down in my guidebook and booked a room there instead.  When I ventured out again,  I met the Czech, who followed me around like a faithful dog for a while.  We went and had a coffee/beer and wandered around the outside of the Cathedral taking the same pictures.  In the Plaza we met Philip, and I introduced the two men to each other.  Philip had walked all the way and was very wet.  I asked him if he'd seen the gypsies at Colloto.  Of course he had.  Philip had a knack for being in the right place at the right time.  I'd told him about the bufones, geysers created by incoming tides being forced through holes in the limestone cliffs; when I had passed them in a forced march with Rodrigo the tide was out. Philip had video!

Philip mentioned how the gypsies had been very interested in him, making him feel exotic, rather than the other way around, and then asked me in all seriousness why there were no German gypsies.  I sighed, and in the politest way I could think of, suggested that there were reasons that he could probably figure out if he thought about it for bit, and that I didn't think we needed to go into them then and there.  I think I saw a lightbulb go on in his head.

I brought the two of them to the albergue, and gave Philip one of my fairy godmother hugs. I hoped we'd meet again on the Primitvo, but you never knew, so each hug on the Camino is like the last.  And in this case, it was.

In the end, Anna did not reply.  This puzzled me because I was pretty sure her offer had been sincere, but after cooling my heels for quite a while, I decided to give the Primitivo a shot.

  I took up my pack and walked out of town.  Even the humbler parts of the place were clean and tidy, After going down one side of a valley, over the railway, and up the other side, I was out in the country very quickly.

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS HITS HOME

After a pleasant morning, I came into the outskirts of Pola de Siero,  a largeish town.  From the little parkette with sweet modern statues at the outskirts of town, I could see the charming spires of the local church, of which I took a picture.  I had to compose that picture carefully to leave out abandoned buildings covered with grafitti, empty storefronts, and signs offering buildings for rent or sale.  I knew that the unemployment rate was high, and that there were rumblings about Spain's financial stability, but here in Pola was the physical evidence.  

The town seemed to have lost whatever charm it might have had.  Apart from the church most of the buildings looked like they were built in the 1960's; the white brick ones, and the 1980's; the white elephants.  What should have been the town centre was just faceless storefronts.  I decided to go down one block to see if there was a more happening thoroughfare than the one down which the Camino was going.  Nothing

.  

I wondered what had happened to the medieval town. I've tried to find out since,  but all I can discover is that Pola was a  little market town, with some meat packing plants.  It seems to have been a victim of progress throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with the "out with the old and in with the new" mentality that has ruined towns everywhere.  Now, in the face of economic insecurity it is slipping back into obscurity.  I heard the other day on the news that the unemployment rate for Spanish young people is 50%.  That's pretty sad, but  helps to explain the anarchist grafitti and the boarded up shops.

The rest of the day looked like it would offer more of the same.  There was a little stretch of country, then the town of Colloto, and then suburbs and industrial parks and highway crossings all the way to Oviedo.  And here, right in front of me, was the bus station, which had a coffee shop, and I was hungry.  And it was pouring.  All of these factors combined to make my decision for me. Sure,  I had wanted to see the encampment of gitanos, Spanish gypsies, on the outskirts of Colloto, but I wanted to stay warm and dry and not walking on pavement through soul-destroying concrete landscapes even more.

Once again, I was happy I chose to take the bus.  I had a nice conversation in English, Spanish, and French with a young Senegalese man who came to Spain as a fisher but was now a butcher.  He hadn't wanted to leave Senegal but there was nothing there for him.  I asked him why he hadn't gone to France, where his native tongue was spoken.  Papers were too difficult to get, he said.  I suppose he was one of the reasons that Spanish youth employment was so high.   

As we went along the highway past roadworks and big box stores, the same route that the Camino followed, I could see that I wasn't missing much by not walking.  Later in the year I heard that the new road had cut the Camino entirely and that there was now no way to get to Oviedo without taking public transport.  I was just ahead of the curve, I guess.

A LITTLE BIT JABBERWOCKY

The weather had definitely changed.  There was a chill in the air as I left Vega early in the morning.  The air was hazy and the sky was pearly.  Rain was in the forecast.

Today's walk would take me to Oviedo.  I wasn't looking forward to the second half of it, which was through the satellite towns and villages of the city, but the first half looked OK on the map.  And it was.  I walked through meadows and little hamlets.  I passed another great lump of limestone called La Pena.  Apple trees were in blossom.

At one point, the trail crossed the highway and went into a wood.  A sign said to be careful because of the Peligroso Socabón.   What sort of thing was that? I wondered.  Lewis Carroll popped into my mind...

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub Bird, and shun
The Frumious Bandersnatch!"

I was conjuring in my mind what a Dangerous Socabon might look like as I entered the wood.  It was a good thing I was looking down because right in the middle of the path was a great puddle of steaming excrement!

I might have thought that it was a sloppy cow pat, had there not been a side order of toilet paper.

  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Peregrino malo, why would you do that right on the path when there are woods on either side?  Perhaps it was for fear of the Peligroso Socabon?

 There was utter silence as I entered the wood.  It was evident that this part of the Camino had been heavily improved lately. There was fresh gravel on the pathway, with large rounded cobbles.  Little streams had been bridged and chairs and benches cut from the trees along the way.  Utter, eerie silence prevailed as I wandered along.  I had decided that the Socabon was sort of a cross between a giant salamander,or a mudpuppy with its fringed gills, and a Chinese dragon, and maybe a bit like Randall, the scary nightmare monster from the Disney movie. It was probably blue, I thought, with a bright red tooth filled mouth.  Suddenly, I was aware of a looming presence. I started and turned to find....

The friendly Czech, powering along in socks and sandals!  Whew!  What a relief....or it was a relief until I started thinking that maybe he thought that I had been the one to besmirch the trail.  Then I was just horrified!

So, what is a socabón, you ask?  As far as I can tell, in Castilian it would be socavón, and it has something to do with a hole or a cave or subsidence.....but what lives in there?  Only your unconscious knows for sure.

SIMPLE THINGS

When it comes to cooking, sometimes the simplest things are best.  Like pimientos de Padron,  fried in oil, salted and served with bread (and beer).  Last night, I was feeling homesick for Spain.  (I know, it's ridiculous, me being a Canadian and all, but it's true just the same), so I made some arroz con leche, Asturian style.  Five simple ingredients, a bit of time, and presto! A dessert to die for.  I had to give some of it away so that I don't totally blow my diet. 

This is the recipe:  http://www.mis-recetas.org/recetas/show/1091-arroz-con-leche-asturiano

Buen Provecho!

I got this nice picture from http://fusiondelasartes.bligoo.com/media/users/7/399122/images/public/27398/arroz_con_leche_con_canela.jpg?v=1278174467255  (because I couldn't find anything suitable on wikimedia commons).

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGA....

stays in Vega, only nothing ever happens in Vega, it seems, so its moot.  I've rarely seen such a sleepy place.  There were buildings, like a town hall, a medical centre, a church, two bars, two grocery stores, but no people, to speak of.  It was as if a neutron bomb had gone off, and the the place had become re-peopled by actors.  The place where we were supposed to get our sello was shut when I arrived, so I hung around for a while until I got the idea to go to the refugio and knock on the door.  Alain and Jacqui were there already, and let me in.  I did some laundry and waited around for things to open up again.  As I was out on the balcony hanging my clothes on a wire rack,  I saw a white haired peregrino looking lost, so I waved to him and signalled that I would let him in.  He was Czech, and spoke no English, no French, and no Spanish.  Talk about a stranger in a strange land!  He was extremely pleasant in his manner, but evidently wanted to keep to himself, so we let him.  Alain and Jacqui were quite friendly, but Alain was tired (he was no spring chicken either), so it was siesta time for us all.

When the shops re-opened, I went out to get my credencial stamped and see what there was to eat.  I went to the other bar for a cafe con leche.   I was hoping to get a glimpse of the Royal Wedding, (which I have yet to see) but, you guessed it, what was on the TV was the end of the blessed bike race!  Their food wasn't ready for a few more hours and it was expensive, so I headed up the street to the Super Cristina to see what there was in the way of groceries.  Not much.  No people = no food.  I bought some arroz con leche in little plastic cups and a banana.  Then I went to the other grocery store.  Not much there either,  but their bread looked delicious.  There were two loaves on display, and the woman behind the counter asked which one I would like.  I said,  you choose, because there didn't seem to be much between them.  She picked one, and as she handed it to me, she watched my face.  I gasped as I touched it. The bread was still warm!  What a simple and wonderful gift she had shared with me, out of the kindness of her heart.  We smiled at one another, no common language required.

GOING UP!

 What a day!  I left Villaviciosa early in the morning, and walked
through a large park on the edge of town.  As the path left the outskirts of town and went up into the farmland I came to a place where three Caminos converged; the Norte to Gijon, the link to the Primitivo, via Oviedo, and the Camino de Covadonga, which goes to the site of the famous battle where Pelayo began the process of Reconquista.  My road, the one to Oviedo, was full of village vistas, hedgerow floral fantasies, and the sound of church bells.  I had decided to take a side trail to visit the ninth century church and medieval monastery at Valdedios.  The steep climb started at San Pedro de Ambas, with its lovely ancient houses and a restored lavadero, and took me past  a host of interesting sights: sleeping cats; lords of their particular universes; chatty farmwives herding cattle;  beautiful horreos which looked almost like Japanese temples rather than mundane grain storage huts;  people out fixing fences;  and a monk, riding in the back of a car full of what looked like Mafiosi, but who were obviously some of the faithful.  The car stopped, and the monk asked me if I was planning to stay at the refugio at Valdedios.  He assured me there would be someone there to give me a tour, but that if I wanted to stay I would have to hang around until he got back.

From the moment it came into view, the church was perfect.  As the guidebook indicated, it was worth the pain of getting there.  The church, built in 893, looked to me as if it had come perfectly formed from the mind of the architect, yesterday.  It is in the process of restoration, but it still looks and feels very old.  The interior was once covered completely with painted plaster.  Little remains now, but it must have felt very fresh and vibrant at the time.  It reminded me of sixties pop art!  The whole place was wonderful, the buildings running the gamut of all sorts of architectural styles.

Alain and Jacqui, an elderly French couple I met along the road, were my companions for a tour, in Spanish, of many parts of the monastery.  We rested, refilled our water containers, and ate our bread and cheese.  Then, the hard part of the day began.  The next four kilometres were spent climbing the Sierra de Sueve.  The rise in elevation was over three hundred metres,  along the side of the valley, where I watched the red roofs of the monastery shrink at every turn.  Eventually, I could just about see the ocean several kilometres away to the north.  I was very glad to get to my coke stop in Campo at the very summit, but the views the whole way were so lovely, I hadn't really minded the climb.

 Alas....what goes up.....let's just say that it was a "fuerte decenso",  ( 100 metres in a single km)   on a hot afternoon, past the only growling dog I met on the whole journey.  I swear I thought it was a lion hiding under that piece of farm machinery!  My knees were really bugging me, and I was just starting to descend into my old grumpiness about too much carreterra, when the Universe sent a sign to make me laugh at myself.  When I say it was a sign, I mean just that,(and in English),  emblazoned on the side of a tractor-trailer parked in a farmyard far below me in the valley.  RELAX!

Somehow that took the pressure off and I enjoyed the rest of the way into Vega de Sariego.  Roses, cattle, little lizards skittering across the road like the shadows of willow leaves suspended above the ground.  Another beautiful Asturian day.