Today’s walk was much better than yesterday’s as we traversed through the countryside and left Gijon and Aviles’s urban and industrial sprawl behind us. The weather was cooler as we set off, and I had my jumper on to keep myself warm.
As we head out, we get a glimpse of the ocean, which isn’t too far away. Unfortunately, that’s all we got today, a few glimpses here and there but no beaches or coastal tracks. We did have good forest and farmland walks to enjoy, so all was not lost.
We leave the farmland behind and cross the freeway into a logging forest. The landscape was scarred with clearings where bundles of logs lay ready to go to the mill. The track here was boggy as the vehicle carrying everything was massive. We had to stand aside at one point to let it pass.
We come to the San Esteban estuary with the town of San Esteban across the water. We don’t go into this town but head more inland to navigate the estuary. Here we meet our Mexican friend Alejandro, a pilot who had just started the walk in Gijon the previous day. He stayed with us for most of the day, and it was good to have his company.
We crossed the estuary and climbed a little and got a good view looking back of San Esteban on the left and Ranon on the right.
We’d encountered these structures quite a bit on our walking journey and often wondered what they were. Alejandro told us today that they’re called orreos, and they used to dry fruit and vegetables hanging on the outside, and then the centre is a store room to store the dried food. Mostly now, though, residents use it to store their junk.
There are many chestnut trees along the route, with residents out to collect the nuts fallen from the trees.
It was about here that we decided to get a cab the rest of the way. We had about 9km to go, and it was approaching 4 pm both Ron and I didn’t want to overdo it and write ourselves off for the next day. I, too, have the bug lingering, which is becoming annoying. Alejandro was still with us, so we went into a servo nearby, and he ordered a cab into our town of Soto de Luiña for the night. He was happy to share the cab too. We all had a beer while we waited for the taxi. It was good to have a Spanish speaker with us as we would’ve struggled to get a cab ourselves at that point as no one seemed to speak English at the servo.
So that’s all there is for today. Tomorrow is looking promising again as we hug the coast and get some good views of the sea and some beaches along the way.
For a map of today’s walk, you’ll find it below.
Thanks for reading, and Buen Camino! 😀