Since all Aria can seem to talk about is her fear of bedbugs, they’ve really been on my subconscious radar lately. Though I don’t even know what actual bed bugs look like, I had a nightmare that millions of microscopic black lobsters had made their home in my sleeping bag. I woke up in a flurry itching myself relentlessly. In my mind, I accepted the fact that my body had been taken over by the little infectious beasts. However, as the fog lifted from my morning mindset, I realized that all was well and that I would live to see another day. The only things that were itching me were a few mosquito bites on my arms.
Since nothing else was open for breakfast, we went back to the same restaurant that ripped us off the night before. We figured we couldn’t go wrong as long as we asked the prices before we purchased. On the way to the restaurant, we met a young Spanish girl that seemed lost along her pilgrimage and asked her to join us. She was only walking the Camino for a three day period because she finished her final exams early. We’ve actually met several people along the way that only planned on walking for a few days at a time. There was even one woman that said she completed the Camino over a period of five years because she was only able to walk a few weekends every summer.
Though we planned to stay in Llanes for two nights so that we could have a beach day, it was overcast and chilly when we woke up. Again, our proposed beach day was foiled by the fog. It was perfect walking weather, however, so we decided to move onward. The Camino took us on a beautiful sandy trail through the lush coast. Many islands were visible offshore and the fog combined with ocean-spray to keep us cool while walking. It was much more pleasant than the day before, though our bodies were still worn out from the 40-kilometer day.
We took a break to figure out where we were staying for the night. All along thus far, we’ve been winging it and showing up to Albergues in hopes of there being room for us. When all our guidebooks said the town of Nuevas had no Albergues, the four of us were quite dismayed. Suddenly, just when we lost hope of staying in Neuvas, a cute little old man drove by us in his car. He gave us a business card and welcomed us to stay in his family home. When his children left the nest, he converted his home into an inn.
We found a few small places to eat that were empty, and decided to keep searching. Thank god we weighed our options because we ended up finding an adorable Cidreria that was packed to the brim with locals and tourists. You had to walk through a massive cider barrel to enter the building and the interior decorations were based around the theme of cider-making. We each ordered from the Menu del Dia, but it was more like menu of the entire month because the portions were so huge. We all shared our heaping plates of pasta, huge leafy salads family-sized bowls of soup that came as our appetizers. We were all already full before we even received our grilled-salmon main course.
Again, we were sickly full and were pained by the one-block-walk we had to make back to the place we were staying. We all practically crawled up the stairs and into our beds for a nap. Aria and I agreed that we need to stop ordering the Menu del Dia. We awoke to Antwon’s face peering into our bedroom to wake us up to go have wine. The four of us chatted around a bottle of delicious white wine, but the conversation turned sour. The two Europeans wouldn’t stop bringing up offensive stereotypes, and by this time it has really gotten old. At one point, I had to remove myself from the conversation because I was about to snap. Enough is enough.
On our way home, we passed by about a dozen drunk men wearing matching hats and T-Shirts. They drunkenly hollered at as we walked on the patio above them. We watched TV for a while and tried to sleep, but there were too many Mosquitos buzzing around our ears. Through the night, we kept turning the lights on and staring up at the ceiling in order to find them and smack them, but somehow we only managed to find one. Though we had our very own room, these incessant beasts kept us up the entire night with their shrill scream. Adding to the list of horrible noises was the sound of the bachelor puking in the bushes outside our window for a solid 20-minutes.
