Quevada 5 September

After a nice breakfast with the other pilgrims, we started walking about 8 am under partly cloudy skies in a beautiful country setting. We intended to cover the 13 km to Somo along the beach. A light drizzle started, so out with the rain gear. We got to the next village and thought we found the path to the beach. Then it started pouring rain. Greg is the weatherman and he predicted clearing weather. He was wrong. I am the navigator,so when we came to an option point, I chose the wrong one. My excuse was the downpour, but instead of going to the beach, we were headed for the hills, then somehow ended up making a big circle to end up where we were 45 minutes earlier. I have no idea how it happened as I am rarely directionally challenged, but it happened this time. Anyway, once back on the highway, we decided to follow it all the way to Somo where there is a ferry acrross the bay to the largest city on the northern coast, Santander.

We walked up to the ferry just as it was leaving and were able to relax and enjoy the views on the way across. We arrived in the bustle of Santander at noon and stopped in the public market to have a quick llunch of ham tortilla. There was free wi fi so I was able to post yesterdays blog and one quick email.

Our plan now was to make our way to the bus or tain staion to see if we could find a way to the town of Mogro without having to walk there. There were three good reasons for doing this: 1) the walk out of Santander is many km of suburb and industrial tracts that are not scenic and not fun, 2) there is not an albergue that would be in convenient walking distance, and 3) to avoid a long 10 km detour, we would have to walk a dangerous and not recommended railroad bridge between Boo and Mogro. There was no local bus to Mogro, so we went to the train staion and saw the lineup of taxis. After checking the rates, we determined that splitting the cost of a taxi three ways would be a quick and cost effective means.

We had the driver drop us off in front of a supermarket so we could stock up on food for tomorrow (and a bottle of Campo Viejo for tonight). By 1:30, we were walking the camino again.

Now before any followers of this blog castigate us for taking a means of transport besides our feet, I want to point out that we walked another 17 km in the afternoon, arriving at Albergue Arco Iris just after 5 pm. We walked 30 km or about 18 miles today. So if we arrive in Santiago a little sooner than planned, we will just spent more time walking a different camino before heading home.

Arco Iris is another country albergue offering both dinner and breakfast. That was great, since we did not want to do any more walking. In fact, I think I wore out both Greg and Big Puppy today as they both went to bed before 9 pm and are snoring as I compose this posting. This is a 60 bed albergue, but there are only 4 of us here. By the way, the chicken noodle soup and patatas caseras were excellent.