Vilela 27 September

The very large Riá Ribadeo as seen from the very long bridge over it.

The view outside the albergue window of fabadas beans. It was raining hard when I took this photo.

The view outside the albergue in Vilela. This is the road we will start on tomorrow.









The morning walk today was confusing, as the albergue at Tapia was on an alternate camino route. There were at least three routes given to the bridge going into Ribadeo, but I ended up doing none of them, just a combination of walking in the direction that I thought was correct, but with some consultation with my guidebooks and the map on Pocket Earth (highly recommended Ipad/Iphone app) It was about 7 or 8 miles into Ribadeo, including a walk over the Ria de Ribadeo on a bridge that was nearly a kilometer long. The walk was easy and mostly fairly level, just confusing, because you had to get to the bridge as it was the only way over the water and into Ribadeo. Once in Ribadeo, I found a cafe for a cup of coffee and a small bocadillo, while I caught up on email, etc., with the free wi-fi. There is no wi-fi here in Vilela, so this will be posted a day late. After a once again confusing exit from Ribadeo, I finally found the camino waymarks for the next 8 km (5 mile) stretch into the wide spot in the road, Vilela. Except for a few houses and a little chapel, there is only a bar/cafe and the albergue. I arrived here at 1:30 pm, first one in, but no electricity. After my shower and clothes washing, I walked to the bar to see why no power. Turns out they are working on the transmission lines in the area and the power should be back by 4 pm. I sure hope so, as the bar/cafe is not serving food right now because of the outage. This is cow country, too, as so much of Asturias and Galicia is, and there are a million flies around, can not seem to escape them. Oh well, at least no mosquitos. By the way, when I walked across that long bridge into Ribadeo, I walked out of Asturias and into the province of Galicia. Also, the camino is now turning away from the coast and over the mountains to Santiago. I got my first taste as it was mostly uphill this afternoon. Tomorrow's walk will be even steeper as the mountains come into view. Oh, and one more thing, it rained lightly for most of the afternoon walk, enough to put on my pack cover, but not bad enough to require my rain poncho. The forecast for the next few days is for off and on rain showers.

Three hours later, 5:30 pm- Now it is pouring rain. Good that I don' have to be out walking in it, hope it clears up tomorrow. Three hours till the cafe opens for menu del dia.

All of a sudden I got the bright idea that the cafe might have wi-fi,perhaps it was just off when the power was off before. Sure enough they do, so I can post this today.