10th of August: San Esteban de Leces - Villaviciosa

TOUGH stage. After that one, I had to take the bus for two days, because of an infected blister and dying knees. Retrospectively the toughest stage for me, when I say "walking again tomorrow", it's an obvious lie: I went to the doctor's instead.

9th of August: Llanes - San Esteban de Leces

That was a nice big stage, arriving in San Esteban de Leces, a very small small village, with a big albergue. There we celebrated Paola's 27th birthday, with a candle on a tortilla. Doesn't sound like much, but, hey, it's not that easy to find a candle in the middle of nowhere!

8th of August: Colombres - Llanes

After that, we had some good time in Llanes, with of all the pilgrims the one enjoying it most: Max

Small update

Ok, not many updates lately because it's a pain to upload videos and am too lazy to type a lot on the phone. I've taken many videos though, and will upload them all when coming back home.

Right .is, I am in Lourenzá, and things go quite smoothly apart from sore knees when going down hill and a few blisters. Less than 170 km to Santiago now!

Comillas -> Colombres

Merry day of singing, with Manolo guest-starring this episode.









Also, this might have been the only day where I have seen a clear sunrise (it was often a bit foggy at sunrise time) on the path

Santillana -> Comillas

First day of walking! (and first day finishing with the bus for Ugo). Made it to Comillas, not too sure where we're going to sleep though.




Update: since we slacked on the way (we had a great all-you-can-eat breakfast in a hotel on the way), we arrived quite late in Comillas, meaning we could not get a bed in the Albergue. Unfortunately, in that Albergue, it wasn't allowed to sleep on the floor, which doesn't mean nobody did it...
Also, I'm making a bit of fun of Ugo: *Sorry Ugo!*, retrospectively, it's not fun any more, since he had to give up later due to the injury that was making him "crawl" in that video.

Departing soon

Here I am, hoping that I am not forgetting to pack anything necessary, and, more importantly, that I am not packing useless stuff, since I will have to carry that for around 500km. To prepare that, I made a list, I'll tell you in the end if it was a clever one :).
Now I have to ensure all of the stuff in the list is in my bag, eat some carbohydrates, and have a bit of sleep. Then, early wake up (I think I'll have to get used to that) to go catch my plane to Bilbao, from where I'll take one or several bus(es) to Queveda, where I should meet Paola and Ugo. Well, that's if all goes according to plan ;).

Next update should be "from the field" :)

Prologue

So, today I did a test hike with all the stuff I am gonna carry on the camino. Went quite well, though I learned a few lessons:

- having a gps gadget to know where you are is great, knowing where is the path you wanna take is better

- these shorts are not made for long distance walks

- 1 litre of water lasts 3 or 4 hours of walking at most with a warm weather; I wonder if I can count on always finding a water source on the way or if I should find a bigger canteen

UPDATE: forgot to mention one lesson:
 - cutting through a wood is not always a good idea, especially when wearing shorts.