Today the winds subsided. For the past two days the sun shone, but a north wind continued to blow cold on the coast. Mercedes, from the albergue two nights ago, said Asturians go to the beach on such days, but sit close to the cliff walls out of the wind. The cold winds keep the tourists away from the beaches those days because they don’t know the trick. We were walking so we couldn’t sit close to the cliffs. We would start the mornings wearing fleece jackets and remove them 30 minutes later when we warmed up. Today there was no wind but you could see your breath. Shelagh bought a pair of mittens at Hiper Galicia, a European Dollar Store of sorts, just in case the cold continues.
Chris is from England. He started in Gijon this time and is finishing what he started two years ago. Where we go south in Ribadeo, Chris will continue walking west along the coast, following a lesser known route that meets up with the Camino Inglis in Ferrol. On a side note, when Mark and Shelagh finished the Camino Norte, they took a bus to Ferrol and walked the Camino Inglis, running into Chris once again.
We asked the woman at today’s accommodation, Albergue Ribadeo a Ponte in Ribadeo, for a lunch suggestion. She sent us to La Quinta. They serve traditional Galician food, lots of seafood, but also offer a menu of the day where you choose two courses from a variety of options. I had a seafood soup, Shelagh had a green salad topped with potato salad and shrimp, and Mark had pasta. For the second course Mark had a steak and Shelagh and I had cod. The menu of the day was 15 Euros. What a great deal!
We have developed a daily routine. We are up by 7 am, walking by 7:45 am, stopping for a breakfast of pinchos at a bar at 10 am (hopefully having walked 10 km). We walk some more, stopping for a cold drink at a bar (Kaz Limon or Coca Cola Zero), walking some more to reach our destination by 1 pm, showering and heading out for lunch by 3 pm. We pick up some snack foods for dinner because waiting until 8 pm for restaurants to open is tough. We eat around 7 pm, play some cards, and head for bed by 10 pm.
Tomorrow we leave the coast for good and start inland climbing. We will have four or five days of climbing before we level off and descend into Santiago de Compostela. We will also leave behind the sunshine. Rain is coming soon.