We’ve stopped early today in Tineo, some 20km from the albergue we stayed in last night in Salas.

Salas was a really pleasant medieval town with lots of bars clustered around the albergue. The photo was taken early this morning as we left and doesn’t make it look terribly appealing but it turned out to be one of the better albergues we’ve stayed in.

The owner was Dutch, unwaveringly pleasant but businesslike. Our room was basic but looked out over the countryside and had a double bed, much nicer than the usual singles occasionally pushed together. The bathroom was down a short corridor but the whole building seemed to be on something of a slant so negotiating one’s way to the toilet in the middle of the night with sore feet up hill was somewhat tricky.

After the England game finished mum and I popped in to the Dutch owner’s cobbler friend who owned the shoe shop a few feet away. I needed to replace my heavy, fairly hard-soled boots with something more forgiving so after an extended session with Google translate we left the shop with a new pair of very expensive but hopefully excellent trail shoes. The owner kept the boots which he’ll send to the post office in Santiago de Compostela on Monday. Hopefully they’ll be waiting for us when we get there. Apparently so many pilgrims need to divest themselves of books, clothes, electronic equipment etc that are filling their rucksacks unnecessarily that the Spanish have put a system in place to allow them to post stuff to themselves at the Santiago post office. Brilliant.

The new shoes, somewhat dirty after today’s long battle with mud.

Dinner was excellent; organic vegetarian and the company was delightful. Opposite me was an cheerfully intelligent Italian photographer with his young German nephew and alongside mum were two Swedes; the chap was originally Iranian but his wife was probably originally swedish. Everyone spoke perfect English as you come to expect these days.

We had a somewhat interesting conversation – Fabricio, the Italian was from Rome so ‘by definition wasn’t religious’. We chatted about football and all the usual suspects before mum and I headed off to watch the tail end of Croatia against Russia. Great game. As it headed towards penalties mum realised that it was 10:25, quite possibly later than the albergue stayed open. Aargh.

Thankfully the Dutch guy was waiting for us with our newly washed and dried laundry.

All of that happened yesterday. Today’s walk was pleasant, somewhat hilly but the real climbing starts tomorrow.

Carrying on yesterday’s theme we saw some beautiful deep blue hydrangeas as we left the town.

We saw no more emus but this bull was pretty impressive.

And there were some lovely horses.

Not sure what they’re used for any more but this area appears to be a major supplier within Spain of dairy products and horticultural products generally so I wouldn’t be surprised to see them used in the hilly fields around here.

Most of today’s route took us through oak and beech woods along small, very muddy tracks. The poles are invaluable for holding your balance whilst balancing on one leg with a heavy pack whilst the other searches out small rocks to stand on amongst the mud.

This Camino is very much quieter than the Frances. It’s also considerably more hilly and the paths so far at least are much smaller and more interesting. Apparently towns are very few and far between and the path often skirts around rather than going through the villages.

One exception yesterday was a small village with a board perched outside offering coffee and breakfast for a donation. A young couple, the chap was French, an engineer originally and his wife who was from Argentina had bought the small house derelict, and resurrected it as a tiny one up, one down. They’d opened up their one room downstairs, i.e. their living room/kitchen for pilgrims in return for whatever they were offered. It’s hardly a get rich scheme but it was a kind gesture and would give them a small but I’m sure very welcome income in the summer at least. They had a one year old child just learning to walk who was, we were told, the first child to have been born in the village for over 50 years. They were the only inhabitants under the age of 50, all the young people had left years ago. This is apparently a very common story in Spain these days. Rural depopulation, neglect and derelict buildings.

Lots of local wildlife today, lots and lots of beautifully coloured butterflies

and the occasional lizard basking in the warm sunshine.

Mum is in fine form these days. Her new shoes are apparently ‘wonderful’ and her feet are in great form. Mine in contrast are clearly frightened by what happened last Camino and haven’t yet forgiven me. They’re constantly complaining and are blistering up badly in an attempt to force me to give up and stop abusing them. I’ve tried to placate them with a new pair of shoes but if that fails they’re simply going to have to learn who’s in charge here.

Here is a nice picture of mum

and here are some pictures of the path running into Tineo.

I’ve no idea who the tin man is meant to represent.

To finish off today’s little missive, today’s albergue is very pleasant – we have a lovely view out over the countryside and the room is clean and has its own bathroom so no dangerous trips on uncertain terrain in the middle of the night.

Buen Camino