Although I slept relatively well, I started the day with a worse throat than yesterday and decided to make a silence day and not talk until the evening to let my voice recover.
We left the albergue around 7 and started walking out of Caravio. The paths were mainly very nice through villages, forests and fields with nice views and the weather was perfectly sunny and warm.
After walking through perfect landscape in silence (Johanna sometimes talking and I responded her in sign language), we decided we should have breakfast exactly where our path turned into a street that crossed the motorway. We tried to find a nice spot or a bench somewhere but finally just sat down on the side of the street and made our breakfast there. We had been nearly the first pilgrims on the road but during the breakfast break many pilgrims passed us.We went on after the break and, after only a short while, the landscape and walking ground got better again. A guy from the Canary islands joined us for at least two hours of our way, talking without even taking a breath to Johanna for the whole time. He was nice but I was pretty happy not to have a voice and Johanna could use the day to improve her Spanish (she had been complaining that she couldn’t learn anything if I was around). He also made us steal some Níspero fruit, which was completely unknown to Johana. The owner of the tree was not amused at all however. He finally left us and stayed at the albergue and we went on towards Villaviciosa.
Theoretically, our day would have been a relatively short one with 23 km and we felt like we should be getting there very soon but after checking the map there were still 5 km left, so we decided to have lunch. We decided that exactly in the moment when our pretty forest path turned into a street crossing the motorway again but didn’t settle down this time. Thanks to our hope, we found the absolutely perfect place to eat. Some people with a big house had constructed a little house in their garden and equipped it with a table and benches, a sink, water and two vending machines with food and drinks. The walls were painted in black and there was chalk available to write something or pin thank you notes to the walls. The place was amazing and we bought some stuff, donated something and sat there eating for an hour with the owners’ dogs.
The last 5 km were harder than the way before but we still walked pretty easily and without showing real signs of tiredness. We arrived at Villaviciosa around 4:30. From here we would take the bus a little further to Oviedo in order to start the Camino Primitivo tomorrow.When we arrived at the bus station at 5, we found out that the bus was not leaving at 5 as planned but at 6. After a short while of thinking, we spontaneously decided to step into the close by sports center and use our spare hour to take a shower. We showered at record speed in like 20 minutes and were back at the station at 5:40. Bus came at 6 and we arrived at Oviedo at 6:40 and at the albergue at 7 – totally destroyed after our 12-hour day but at least clean.Mitch and Ben were already waiting for us there and we just dropped our packs and went to the supermarket. We had been willing to go to a restaurant but it was just too late so we bought lots of microwavable food and ate together in the common room.
I feel pretty tired and destroyed by my throat ache today, but as usual in the evening, things are pretty funny nevertheless and I feel to be in a weird kind of inner balance. I think it will be pretty hard to accept the end of the Camino in 13 days.
