And a grey mist on the sea's face
And a grey dawn breaking
I can recommend the Casa Principada at Nueva. A comfortable single room for €12:50, and the washing (included) was delivered to our door In the morning. And the meal at the bar across the road was satisfactory, even if the service was not up to scratch. Water and wine were included, with only one glass. "Drink up your wine, and then fill it with water," she said, refusing us a second glass.
We left Nueva before dawn, unable to find breakfast before Ribadesella, 13 kilometres later. It was a long and lonely trek across fields, along the railway line, and beside the motor way.
I walked very carefully through a couple of stiles in an electric fence. The principle of a style is to have a passage with a turn too sharp for animals to manage but which people can negotiate. Often, though, it's a tight squeeze for a person with a backpack. Here, the principle was the same, but the danger was not a scrape on a stone wall, but an electrifying experience.
Many people who live along the Camino encourage the pilgrims in different ways. Just before Ribadesella, someone had painted a stone wall with colourful images and symbols, a true labour of love which lifted our spirits on our hungry, coffee-deprived trek.
In the town at last, we ate, and headed across the bridge towards the Tito Bustillo Caves, which I had visited last year. I noticed a large school of fish in the water below, uninterested in the bait some fishermen were dangling among them. Three little dogs trotted by, with eleven legs among them, the third trotting along gamely. Was it on the Camino Portuguese that I met a two-legged dog? Dogs don't complain: they just get on with it.
On the other side of the bridge from a long line of camping cars and caravans emerged a congregation of folk in colourful robes, Asians and Europeans, including an Indian guru and some Chinese without cameras. One lady was overlooking the water with arms outstretched, exhaling loudly. I mention the remarkable absence of cameras, only to observe that these were people who did not need to record their presence in every place they visited on this planet. Something Zen, I imagine.
At the bar, people were drinking cider in glasses which the barman would fill with arms outstretched, the left holding the glass, the right the bottle. Some of the liquid would miss and end up on the pavement, but the drinkers didn't seem to mind. In any case, towards the end of the glass, they would toss the dregs on the ground and wait for a refill. I learned that these were not the antics of a skiting barman but a practice of the region to aerate the cider.
From time to time he would come out to offer tapas to the other clients, but not to us. We were small beer.
I lingered for a while in Ribadesella, while Preben visited the caves. Then it was off towards the west, walking along the promenade of what has to be one of the most magnificent beaches on the Bay of Biscay, the Playa de Ribadesella and Santa Marina.
Then it was a steady climb up to San Esteban, where we hesitated over whether to stay at the albergue, but continued on to the little beach resort of La Vega, quiet now, out of season, where we found a little apartment by the seaside.
This is a wonderful place, reminiscent of Busselton as I remember it. We walk across the sand dunes to the sea and watch the waves rolling in, the deeper rumbling of the breakers blending with the constant rushing of the surf on the sand, two musical notes creating a unique and magical sound.
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