My Camino Day August 27 2022

The Beginning

My Camino Day August 27 2022 was a great last day on el Camino de Santiago for 2022. Great weather, beautiful scenery, wonderful peregrinos, and challenging terrain. My hike was uneventful until my arrival in Cadavedo, but more on that in a bit. The beginning was almost perfect as I wrote in my journal, “A nice slow start to my final morning on el Camino for the year. Long night’s sleep, nice breakfast at the Pension, careful packing up.”

The Camino follows the road leaving Santa Marina. The weather was beautiful. The first steps are easy ones on smooth, level pavement. Again, almost perfect with the exception of what some might think of as a minor concern as noted in my journal, “Now if only ‘stuff,’ starting with my shoes, was not still soaked from yesterday!”

I was a bit video happy on the 27th and added a full dozen to my list of recordings.

I took those videos. All my work is genius. Therefore, it is clear to me that all of them are worth sharing. Well, maybe most of them. And some might best be shared in other contexts such as how difficult some sections of trail are. After reviewing all of them multiple times, I uploaded six of them to my YouTube channel.

This particular hike had its challenges, as I noted in my journal, “… hard, but only 6 miles as I did not get lost.”

The Middle

Why “hard”? Well, in part because it included a lot of up and down. For example, after a bit of hiking I found myself almost at sea level with a wonderful view of the ocean.

Not long after that, the Way took me to the mesa at the top of the cliff that faces the Bay of Biscay in this area. That included a climb that I guessed to be about 60 meters (200 feet).

Before long, the Way began another descent to sea level. This one was tough and included a section that looked almost vertical to my 76 year old eyes. It wasn’t just steep in general, the closest section was the steepest. All of it appeared damp and potentially slippery.

The End

The story of arriving in Cadavedo, discovering that the pueblo’s annual fiesta was just coming to an end, making new Camino friends, and having an, let’s call it “unusual,” albergue experience seems best done as a telling of a tale, and so this video.

Epilog

The wonder of my 2022 Camino experience was coming to a timely end as noted in my journal “It is time to admit some truths to myself. My body is fatigued with the walking, which has been substantial both in distance and difficulty. My brain is fatigued from all the introspection, study beyond myself, and creativity. I miss Jan and HOME. Only the spirit aspect of this still says ‘more!’

“It is time to go home. If the passion remains and the strength can be mustered, well, ‘next year.’”

And so, on August 28th, I would find myself looking somewhat enviously at the path to Luarca, only 15.3 kilometers (9 miles) away, as I explored Cadavedo just a tiny bit more until it was time to catch the bus to Oviedo and begin the journey home.