As we were getting ready to leave the next morning, we realized we must have left Johns jacket at the restaurant. It was Sunday morning and they were not opening till 11:00 am. I told the woman who owns the Pensión what had happened via Google translate and she picked up her phone and immediately sent a text message to the restaurant owner. This is what it is like in these small towns. The small business owners all know each other. The restaurant owner said they didn’t have it but also since we were sitting outside, it was probably still there. They remembered where we were sitting as we were the only non locals there last night. We walked back over to the restaurant (750 meters out of our way) and didn’t see it. As we were leaving I looked under the table and found it. I was quite relieved as I realized it must have fallen out of out backpack when I was getting my jacket out. We were also quite grateful that the Pensión owner went out of her way to call to inquire about our jacket and quickly forgave her for all the noise the kids were making the night before.
After walking 3 kilometers we came to the river city of Luarca. We past several Indiano houses on our way into to town. We hoped to stop for coffee but every cafe was full of patrons and had long lines. We decided to keep going, happy that we had iced tea and nuts with us.
Luarca is an interesting town. As you approach the town you are on a hill looking down. We walked down streets, ramps and stairs into the town and then back up steep streets ramps and stairs after passing through town. The house and apartments were all built into the steep hillsides.
We headed back into the countryside, passing multiple farms and small towns and going up and down hills.
About 6 kilometers from Navia , our destination, we met a couple from Belgium. They had decided to leave the Camino and walk along the N 634 road for the last 6 k into town as was a bit shorter than the farm roads the Camino followed. We were pretty exhausted and decided to do the same. They were a bit ahead of us and kept switching sides of the road every 15 minutes or so. We did not know why they were doing this as we prefer to face traffic but thought it was safer to be on the same side. The cars travel about 50 mph on that road. We later founded out they were switching sides to give her blisters a break. In retrospect it was not a good decision to stay on the road as the pavement was very difficult on my feet. Also it just wasn’t the same Camino walking experience. While the Camino often goes on back roads it tries to avoid the busier roads with faster speed limits. Needless to say we were exhausted by the time we made it to our Pensión and took a well deserved rest after our 25 k walk. We didn’t even bother to do laundry. After resting, we headed out to check out the town and get dinner. We found a place that was serving food at 7:00 pm and were happy to see our friend Hank from Belgium there eating. We joined him for supper and more good conversation before heading back to our Pensión and sleep.
