Days 5 and 6: Grado to Salas and Salas to Tineo

We started yesterday morning with breakfast in Grado. We left by about 8am and started walking. It was a beautiful day and the scenery was similar to the previous, all very beautiful. We found some dining pilgrims during second breakfast. We met a lady called "litebright" who helped me tape up my blistered feet. Along the walk there was way to many dogs. Some leashed some not, some barking, some not.

We arrived in Salas in early afternoon and got showered. It was a fun surprise to see familiar faces pile into the albuergue after us! Jack from New York, Manfred from Stuttgart, and Erik and Laura from Austria.

We made friends and went off to drink beer. Mom went to mass while I stayed behind and chatted. Mom has a crazy story, but it's not mine to tell so you'll have to ask her! We all ended the evening with dinner and a few more beers.

I was so tired and it got so late that I didn't feel like writing 😂

Today I woke up tired, but ready to conquer a slightly shorted day of 13 ish miles (I think it was closer to 14 personally). The day started with a piece of toast and a huge hill. The majority of the morning was straight uphill. It didn't really bug mom or I as much as the other pilgrims. Shout out to Grant for making us do squats.

We had a second breakfast of bocadillos and mom had a cafe con leche of course. We ran into Litebright again and she taped my feet... this time telling me not to remove the tape after one day but to leave it until it falls off. Yes Ma'am. After second breakfast we had a little bit more uphill climbing before the path mostly evened out. I was pretty excited to have stashed some gummy bears from the day before for an afternoon trail snack.

Once arrived in town we found our albuergue which was recommended to us by a man on the trail... who I'm pretty sure owns the albuergue. It's so funny to me that he goes out and recruits walkers on the path himself. Now we're showered and had a lovely snack of room temp bakery pizzas, a pastry and a drink. Mom and I love snack time. We had the same thing yesterday. We stopped by the supermarket to also grab some food for tomorrow because everything will be closed.

I'll have to add more later tonight!

It's later tonight. We went out and found the church. It was locked. Huge bummer. So again we went and found friends and beer. We had a great night with friends from earlier and new friends. We also made friends with the pianist with whom I did a wonderful rendition of Chopsticks. I also made friends with the owner of the hotel and bar who gave us a special pin for the Camino. He was so charming and loved to tell us his stories. He was 76 and walked from Rome to Santiago when he was young. I'd love to set him up with my friend, Jeanne.

We had the pilgrims meal of breaded pork, eggs, ham, fries, and salad with wine as well as a few additional vino tintos and cervesa. What a wonderful night of sharing in the experience with fellow pilgrims. I'm sad that every moment is so fleeting.

Some of my favorite parts of the walk are random poppies growing.