Camino Primitivo - Early days

We are day four into our Camino Primitivo walk from Oviedo to Santiago. Fifteen days and approximately 350 kms. I am sitting at a desk in our hotel room in Pola de Allande. In the street below I can hear our Irish walking chum, 67 year old Angus Barklay, barking at his Irish chum Peter who has just done the 27km walk from Tineo. We walked in about two hours ago. Weary and grateful for a bathtub and bed.

We met Angus in the breakfast room at our hotel in Oviedo, the charming capital of the Asturias region. It is the Asturias mountains this most ancient Camino walks through. Angus, like many of the folks we have met on the first four days is a walking veteran. These veterans can list the many Camino walks they have done and it seems to me the souls who do this route are older, often couples from as far away as Brazil, and looking for the more quiet, less crowded vibe this walk offers. Sue and I are relative nubes and we listen earnestly as the 'pros' debate the merits of when to drink water and how much ("not for at least the first 3 hours" Angus advises with his Irish lilt punctuated by a laugh. "Then two hours after that".) "And make sure you rest 5 kms out from your destination" we were told by Karen from Australia who had done numerous walks around the world with her husband - both doctors. "That way you enter the town fresh and don't rush to finish".

We have listened eagerly to all this and have found our own stride. Usually me about 15 feet behind Sue, watching the back of her calves power up a hill. We fall in and out of stride, making idle chatter about the beauty of the clang of the bells around the cows necks, how cute that dog was or marvelling at the views.

While the St. Jean, classic Camino was all about vistas of huge fields of green and yellow and the route folding out, the Primitivo goes up and down and around the rolling hills covered with smaller pastures. The stone pathways flanked by stone walls curve often with vistas off to one side, hills rising on the other. One is never far from a small collection of farm buildings and the raised granaries that are almost always on a property. It took us a while to figure out what these ubiquitous buildings are for. Sue speculated a granny flat - uhh right city planner - a building with about an 6' headroom and no windows. Ok so maybe I am an architect and deduced the oversized concrete post caps and large gap to the last stair was to prevent mice from getting at the stored grain - massive flexing on my part. Pretty typical of the mindless banter that flows when you walk day in day out for four days - eleven more to go.

The pictures tell the story but they can't convey the joy of walking and the pleasure of meeting new folks and forming a community of pilgrims - peregrinos. So far folks, including us, are chipper. The talk is about how your feet feel, where to go for dinner. Soon, I am sure, the miles will bring out other layers of feelings and thoughts. As Francesco, the wise Camino Spaniard told me and David last year, the Camino offers stages of revelation. We shall see what the coming days bring.