Reset search
Camino del NorteCamino del Norte
SatelliteEdit route

Camino del Norte

April - June 2024
An open-ended adventure by anna-on-the-camino Read more
Currently traveling
  • 45footprints
  • 2countries
  • 46days
  • 347photos
  • 17videos
  • 2.0kkilometers
  • 968kilometers
Follow Calendar Share Bucket list
Date ascending
  • TravelerCamino del Norte
    1
    111
    Day 19

    Nueva

    May 6 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    Day 19
    Asturias is much more rural than Basque country and Cantabria, and I was walking on country paths nearly all day. Really fun to leave the hostel with John from Holland (and no, Dad, he doesn't call it The Netherlands, because for him it's the same thing), at a cracking pace and with easy conversation all the way to Llanes, the first 7 miles of the day. It's a lovely little town, perhaps my favourite so far.
    I then sent a box of things home from the post office, relieving myself of about 1kg of kit: just an accumulation of little things, my toilet bag, and one fleece. I kept the new jacket I bought last week, and reckon that if I get cold I can now wear everything I have with me, layered up, and feel confident it's enough.

    It feels such a privilege and a freedom to walk though idyllic coastal countryside on a clear and warm day, on my own, mile after mile, just taking in the animals, plants, clouds, winds, paths, villages, occasional people ...
    Found horses with bells as well as the many many cows with bells. Was reminded of a poem I wrote when we stayed in a monastery in Switzerland in 2017 while waiting for our US Visas to come through. I'll share it here, just because I can. And because this is what can happen when bells ring:

    The Bells of Ralligen

    The clanging of bells filled the air and brought my heart to attention: 
    “this is it”, they were singing, 
    “this is the moment, 
    here you are and we are too: 
    be happy with us, praise be! “

    It was early morning, 
    no change of lightness yet visible in the cloudy sky over the lake, beyond the mountains, 
    but the bells were urging 
    the waking of the dawn, 
    the bells were calling 
    all ears that could hear, 
    the bells were summoning life 
    out of the noone-nowhere-nothing
    of the long dark night.

    When the church tower fills with the dingdangdong of Sunday beckoning
    there are some few minutes of noise, 
    then a sudden return to emptiness.

    But the cows on the hillside persist, persist,
    insist,
    that we attend
    to grace.

    I'm not thinking all that much, or at least only occasionally thinking about something particular and pursuing an idea. It's been a lot about how I relate to myself and to the world, and to people, about me, noticing how defendedly I've held my heart, (perhaps like any or all of us), and how I don't need that survival mechanism any more. Not sure I can say much more about that right now, as 20 miles is a lot to walk and I'm pretty worn out. I think you'll have to meet me for coffee once I'm home again to ask me what's been going on.

     I'm very happy.

    I booked a hotel room because I couldn't find a hostel where I wanted to be, and paid a little more for a bathtub: BLISSSSSSSSS!

    'Collected' a whole lot more flowers today ... do you remember those 'I spy' books? Tick off each thing when you see it? I can't imagine there are many more flowers in northern Spain than I've spotted so far!
    Lesley, I have MULTIPLES of 17 flowers on my list. You're the only guesser so far but you're waaaaay off! Can't offer the prize for something so off-beam. Someone else wanna take a stab at guessing how many I've identified so far?    Read more

  • TravelerCamino del Norte
    Day 20

    Duesos

    May 7 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Day 20
    Ahhhh, this place and this weather are exactly what I dreamed of for the camino.
    Coastal paths, some made up and some stony tracks, some roads, little pretty villages surrounded by farmland and nature, mountains in the close distance and sea on the other side. Today I took three sea-dips, one a skinny dip with a friend to fulfil a challenge she'd been set!
    But today I undertook to take no photos, apart from new flowers, and only cheated for one selfie with the above-mentioned Trix (Netherlands), one video of what I assume is the collection of home towns/countries of all the guests at the accommodation we were passing, and one pic at the skinny dip beach of what looks like naked woman crouched in the surf (but isn't)! I've also shown a different euphorbia, perhaps the 'euphorbia euphoria'.

    So much more could have been 'captured' on camera, but how can I be really present to an experience if I'm always putting a machine between my face and the Real World I'm wishing to be present to? On day 14 I took a minute long video of the waves thundering into the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs (which I showed here as a single still) and was rather abashed to realise I had 'got it' on camera before I had actually stood and looked at it/ listened to it breathed it/ felt it/l loved it. That's not how I wish to live. I choose to be HERE, NOW, with THIS and with US. Will you join me?

    Letting people speak and listening in such a way as to hear them rather than interpreting and categorising what they say in terms of my life is also how I want to live, and practice living. I've been observing myself and observing others in our getting-to-know-each-other chats day by day, and wondering why people ask certain questions: is it to understand their conversation partner better or to understand themselves? Both are valid! But a balance feels healthy. Don't you recognise that feeling of being peppered with questions and wishing they would Just Stop? And also that experience of being deflected from a real encounter by someone who hides behind clever quasi-insightful probing?
    And don't you know that quality of true exchange with someone when the conversation flows and resonates and feels mutual, warm, accepting?

    Today took me past the half way mark of the Camino del Norte. I have walked around 280 miles. Guess that makes me hardcore!    Read more

  • TravelerCamino del Norte
    Day 21

    Carda

    May 8 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    Day 21
    Been slipping off the official route as often as possible in order to be closer to the sea, but didn't quite fancy swimming at 8am as I walked across the beach for the last time for a few days. Heading inland now towards Oviedo, before returning to the Norte in Avila. Many people go on to the Primitivo route from Oviedo onwards, instead of continuing along the coastal path, but perhaps I can come back another time (with Luca?) to do the whole Primitivo. It's around 300km.

    My flower count has increased again, with another orchid on the list and a superb so-called 'three bird toadflax'!! Common flower names are so great in English ... I've also seen brass button, tiny shepherd, spotted medick, clustered bellflower, cutleaf cranesbill; what a privilege to see them all (and many more!) in this place.

    Met up with John again at a pilgrims' rest stop, my morning walking buddy a couple of days ago.
    Sandra, Poland; Petra, Germany; Shu, China (but now lives on a narrow boat in Northampton UK!).
    Heather and Dave, Glasgow.

    It's so lovely to find those places where someone has created a welcome bench in a shelter, or is offering food or drinks, or a colourful Camino painting, or even just a cheery 'buen Camino!' sign. We are operating in a sort of undercurrent below normal Spanish life, but we are not unnoticed nor unwelcome, and in places we are really appreciated and celebrated. It's quite special.    Read more

  • TravelerCamino del Norte
    1
    Day 22

    Pola de Siero

    May 9 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    Does it matter whether one has grand or special thoughts, rather than little or ordinary ones? Isn't it often true that trying to think about something ("important") leads more to contortion or stultification than freedom and progress?
    I had kinda thought I would spend a week or two settling in to the rhythm of the Camino days, and then my thoughts might have become quieter, or freer, or I might gain clarity or inspiration. Or something.
    That's not how it is.
    And I'm loath to force anything different.

    So today was another day of happy walking in gorgeously gorgeous wide broad hills full of unspoilt nature, with villages and farms freckling the view. Found a lemon tree by an abandoned house, picked one and bit into it and discovered it was an orange! Took several more for juicy moments along the way. That's a sure way to encourage a pilgrim. And came across a funny old fashioned everything-shop in the middle of nowhere, where I had a coffee, and bought salami, coconut biscuits and nuts for snacks. Walked briefly with a German man until he told me he was heading for Gijon and I pointed out that the path we were on was 10km in the wrong direction; there was a critical junction of two Camino routes that he had missed...

    There was a lot of roadside walking, but that made the woodland track for the last 3km or so seem all the more fabulous. Enchanted. And the gift of a freshly cut rose and a lily from the elderly man who called out to offer me water all the more charming and heartwarming.

    I voice-noted:
    I feel free
    I feel safe
    I feel calm
    I feel content
    I feel excited
    I feel proud
    I feel satisfied
    I feel protected
    I feel thankful
    I feel surrounded

    (And was reminded of St Patrick's prayer:
    Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ above me, Christ below be, Christ within me, Christ without me)

    Yes.    Read more

  • TravelerCamino del Norte
    Day 23

    Oviedo

    May 10 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    Day 23 Oviedo
    I've been humming and hahing about tomorrow's decision, a silly amount of energy spent on a simple -doesn't-even-really-matter question, namely whether to continue on the Norte route (which I declared my intention to do a couple of days ago) or to start the Primitivo.
    Preoccupation gets on the way of really living.

    Most of the issue was to do with how to best use the week that Luca will be here at the end of the month. Inspired by Petra, (German, sharing a twin room tonight) I have chosen to do the 'O Camiño dos Faros' with him, which takes 8 days and follows the north west coast of Galicia, past its many lighthouses as the name suggests. A perfect path to do in the time we will have together. https://www.caminodosfaros.com/

    So, with so much coastline ahead with Luca, I have now decided-decided to walk the most mountainous, most remote, most natural (fewest made up paths) and arguably most challenging Camino. Starting tomorrow. Take a look at the map: I've followed the green route so far, to the tip of the triangle where it meets a yellow and a pink line. The Norte continues northwards (duh) with quite a lot more coast before turning down towards Santiago; the Primitivo, in yellow, goes directly through the hills and joins with the 'Frances' (pink) for a couple of days before Santiago.

    Oviedo is a super city, grand, smart, beautifully laid out, although it was a very long hot horrid noisy trafficky road into the centre. The city festival this weekend made exploring the streets all the more interesting, especially the many stalls with artisan foods and crafts, and local music performances. Lots of free cheese and meat samples!
    I didn't pay to enter the cathedral, but the Iglesia de San Isidoro El Real provided enough overblown decorative intricacy, glorified Madonna statuary and dead Jesuses to satisfy me for another long while. Isn't the icon with the three hands sweet though?

    I wondered today about how I usually make decisions, and how some things are perhaps best left to routine ... the simplicity of the daily process here is a relief: every day all I have to do is get up and go out, making sure I have enough food and water to keep me healthy. Arrive, wash, eat, sleep, repeat.
    I'm not as routinised usually, especially when there is no appointment to get up early for. I like spontaneity and flexibility, very much. But it can become lazy, so that I end up with a slowest, easiest, less challenging, more indulgent outcome. Mightn't it help me to be regular, a bit more consistent? To not have to make a decision about the ordinary things again and again, but let a daily rhythm carry me? Living alone for a lot of the last 3 years has really shown up my inertia, and my previous reliance on the comfortable assumptions that develop in shared living. Do you know what I'm on about? I don't have answers. Just a wish to be simpler, to be content, to be free.    Read more

  • TravelerCamino del Norte
    Day 24

    Grado

    May 11 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    Day 24
    Took three wrong turnings today and walked miles off course ... but what a way to spend an evening! The atmosphere is buzzing, and the ladies got me to join in the dance! The lady on her own asked me to film her. Hilarious, fabulous!Read more

  • TravelerCamino del Norte
    1
    Day 25

    Salas

    May 12 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    So many more people on the Primitivo, more than the Norte and more than I expected. It seems likely that I'll be able to see someone else for most of the day while walking, although today I stole away to use some other smaller (if perhaps longer) tracks I could see on the map. Took an hour's lunch break under the shade of an oak tree, and could watch other pilgrims in the valley trogging along a horrid hot road, and felt pretty smug. One local lady stopped her car and tried to convince me to go back the other way: she didn't like it all that I insisted on continuing! But another man who was working in his garden and greeted me, to question my path, accepted my halting Spanish explanation that 'este camino es mas bonito': 'this path is more beautiful!'

    But in general this route is much more rural than so far, with proper footpaths and tracks through woods, alongside streams and rivers, through hamlets and villages, as well as the town roads, unavoidable as they lead to the hostels. Birdsong all day, frequent river noise and no traffic noise at all. Lots and lots of flowers, with new ones for my collection again and again. Sharp-eyed flower-spotter I am!

    All delightful and charming.

    Today my back went into spasm so I'm feeling fragile. Need to sleep properly again tonight.

    I still have little clarity about the 'why' of this pilgrimage, and I'm going to try a different tack from now on.
    I'm going to open The Noon Meditation Room every day at 12noon and 5pm UK time, if anyone would ever like to join me. It's just a zoom space for 20 minutes of silence, which you can use in any way you wish such as meditation, reading, praying, journalling, painting... Up to you! I created TNMR during lockdown and we have a great little community that still meets, both for meditation and for a monthly 'spirituality' book club. And a creative writing group has been started up by one of the members too! Let me know if you would like to join in (any of the above); we have a whatsapp group for the zoom links.

    Love y'all!    Read more

  • TravelerCamino del Norte
    2
    Day 26

    Tineo

    May 13 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    Day 26 Tineo
    My back was really badly in spasm last night, but this morning I felt well enough to walk, slowly, having sent my rucsac on to tonight's hostel by pilgrim taxi. It was tough in places, when I was feeling drained, especially when it was also raining. But remarkably the landscape felt really English today, and therefore kind of homely, with green green fields spreading out gently in every direction, woodland paths, stony and muddy, and almost every flower the same as at home: foxglove, daisy, dandelion, aquilegia, bugle, honeysuckle, bluebell, greater and lesser celandine, campion ... you get the idea.

    I met some great people, the slow ones who saunter along at the back end of the day's flood of pilgrims, like José Luis (apparently the most popular name in Spain, I've met three already) with whom I sheltered from the heaviest rain alongside Isabelle from France and the local magazine delivery lady. He made really nice jokes the whole time, the sort that make you really laugh because they are so silly, in Spanish plus hands; everyone was made to feel as if we were part of some big warm huggy friendship thing together, in all spontaneity. My conclusion is that this man is simply fluent in communicating - the language being relatively irrelevant. Three weeks ago all I knew in Spanish was hasta la vista (didn't know what it meant) and vamos a la playa (only useful in some places), but now I'm able to laugh at jokes and understand when someone is talking about the deeper meaning of the Camino. Jose Luis, that is, when we walked together a short distance later in the day; surprisingly, in a way, after all his joking around.
    Google translate helps when ordering food or wanting to take advantage of a two-for-one offer in the supermarket, otherwise I can now proudly claim to 'get by' in this language, mostly of course because of my Italian.

    I'm sending my bag on tomorrow as well. Hooray.    Read more

  • TravelerCamino del Norte
    Day 27

    Pola de Allande

    May 14 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

    Day 27
    Another day without the rucsac, and what a difference it makes to walking a long distance! Today was incredibly changeable in the weather, with no half hour constantly this or that: sun, spitting rain, strong wind, wet rain, gentle breeze, a mix of this and that including, at the very end, one half of the sky blue and the other covered in raincloud (two photos show this below). No rainbows though, but I kept looking. Marvelous, all of it.

    It was lovely walking with Simon and Denise/NZ at several points, chatting about this and that, as you do. It's very easy to be together for a short while with another pilgrim, perhaps meeting up at a cafe when you stop for a coffee, and then leaving together, but then to go your separate ways if someone needs to stop and put a coat on, or if your pace is different, or just because you wanna walk alone. Nice to not have to excuse yourself or be embarrassed. Everyone knows we all have to go at our own best speed and take breaks independently.

    I was playing my little fife at one point, wandering down an idyllic woody pathway, and failed to take a critical turning. Found myself way off the route, but at such a simple parallel distance from the right path, I thought, that I decided to brave cutting across the wood/ field/ fence/wall/ undergrowth/ stream ... a bit of a hack, to be honest, but I do like a challenge!

    Took another alternative path (shorter, and on purpose this time) and wandered around an abandoned monastery a little, but it felt a bit creepy so didn't stay long! My practice now with all the churches and chapels we pass is to try the door; mostly they are locked. Then I knock, to show I'm requesting entry! If the door is open - yesterday, unusually, there were three open churches, all explicitly welcoming pilgrims - I go in and kneel to pray briefly, or even lie down on the stone floor. Just a symbolic action (a bit dramatic, but noone else sees me so it's only me who finds it weird!) of open-handedness, and open-heartedness. I want to keep reminding myself to welcome whatever offers itself to me on this Camino, without pre-determining what that should see or feel or sound or look like.

    I'm singing a lot when I'm on my own. Easy, fun, la-la-la, unambitious, funny how I can remember words of songs sometimes and not at all at other times. Lots of childhood songs coming up into my memory! When the road is right and steep, glad that I live am I, I'll sing you one-oh.

    A nice short day tomorrow, 12 miles perhaps, but with a very big ascent at the start. Looking forward to it!    Read more

  • TravelerCamino del Norte
    11
    Day 28

    La Mesa

    May 15 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

    Day 28
    I actually overslept this morning, unbelievable, right, in a dorm, but felt so good when I woke up! The terrain was the hardest yet, with a huge ascent for the first half day, and a rain-wind storm at the top; tough going. But it was familiar mountainous walking, like the Alps perhaps, and I was alone ALL day ... apart from the moment I missed a turning, walked way down a forest path, and heard a voice shouting all sorts of things of which the only thing I understood was 'chica'! It was the forest ranger who had watched me wander off, came after me in his vehicle and gave me a lift back to the road. Rescued! Then I walked with an elderly Australian man for several miles until he stopped off at his accommodation; I sang my way downhill to my hostel. The cows are always intrigued when I sing.

    I was loving the patterns, tones and textures today. Fewer flowers but more lichen, moss and ferns. Loving the cloud, the sudden low visibility, the spit and blast of the changeable weather, the subdued light into the distant hills, the loneliness.

    Just before bed I experienced a hostel classic. Three friends at one end of the 24 bed dorm opened the window, creating a cold draught; the ladies next to me went to close it. Twice. Or was it three times. The 'Openers' objected, loudly, in bad English, the 'Closers' responded in similarly bad English, neither listening to the other of course, and no 'please can we... because..'. To and fro, voices raised, shouting, foreign incomprehensible aggression flying over my bed when each just wanted to express their anger; the Closers went to get the Host who marched in and clapped it shut, muttering and tutting; the Germans worked out that if they lowered the shutters the draught would be less, so planned to open up again later... Which they did, I'm glad to say. Hostel muff is awful.

    It was a cartoon, would have been funny if it were not a really uncomfortable caricature of people's inability to treat each other as humans sharing the planet. Isn't it just like life? Sigh...    Read more

  • 2024© FindPenguins
  • Home
  • About us
  • Blog
  • Group Tracking
  • Press
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy & Cookies
  • Support
  • Legal notice
  • English