#5 Camino Primitivo Cornellana to Tineo
Cornellana to Tineo - Hamish’s birthday!
Perhaps because it was too hot, neither of us slept well, although the room was huge and spacious (a bunk bed in each corner) with only 4 of us in the room.
We got up at 6am and Hamish opened the birthday card from his parents…painted beautifully by his mother Marie-Louise, who is a wonderful artist.
Our two German ladies left at 6:30am, so we were able to pack in relative comfort, as we then had the room to ourselves.
In the monastery kitchen we met one of the Italians from the night before, who kindly gave us extremely strong coffee, enough to get my heart pace rocketing…making proper sense of the term “rocket fuel”.
Today was possibly a big push day to Tineo…36.75k! So we refuelled at a cafe in Salas with tortilla and fried chicken boccadillos after 11.3k…
Along the way we passed a very impressive limestone factory, and even witnessed a small landslide which had us running for cover!
Fascinating clues on the ground, such as fallen leaves, acorns and fruits, made us guess what was in the canopy above, and our ears were constantly treated to sounds of cowbells, bird song and industry.
Today was hot, around 27 degrees, so the tree cover on the hill climb after Salas was very welcome, as were the delicious breezes. The intense sun made us grateful for any metre of shade.
I enjoyed a moment when I leant down to inspect an unusual looking stone, only to discover that it flew, and was actually a butterfly. There were plentiful butterflies today…blue and gold… as well as some gorgeous dragonflies and damselflies.
We came across our first birch trees and realised it all felt a little like the Cairngorms in Scotland, with all the heather, gorse and sphagnum moss.
Sudden haar (a cold misty fog) in la Espina added to that feeling, but was still surprising, as the weather forecast here was still saying 28°…so it was clearly a very localised weather front. The temperature dropped a few degrees and became grey, cold and misty, which I must admit wasn’t actually unwelcome after the intense heat.
It’s such fun to feel the growing camaraderie of the Camino pilgrims, as you tend to pass the same people along the way, either just walking, or in the next bunkbed.
In this case, after we had told our Italians over breakfast that it was Hamish’s birthday, whenever we passed them along the way, they stood to attention and burst into song for him!
They were the ones to finally convince us to go the mammoth 37k to Tineo to share a beer together there.
However, the final 5K after El Crucero was tough and we had to do everything we could, to keep up morale. Hamish comes into his own at these moments. He devised a catchy song based over a salsa clave rhythm to keep us going…
“Tineo, Tineo, we are on our way-o!”
This had us making up silly rhyming verses and marching and giggling all the way into Tineo, where we met the three Italians again and went in search of the municipal albergue.
Sod’s Law that on our longest day so far, this albergue only had one bunk left! We tried a second, which was also full. Finally, we got lucky with the third, which was a four-star hotel that had an albergue in the basement. €20 but with the added bonus of breakfast included.
Hamish was intent on a burger and beer for his birthday dinner and we discovered a lovely characterful bar up a side street, called La Griega. Hamish was particularly taken by the little stools which had been designed with uneven legs, to be able to sit flat on the steep hill we were on.
When it came to the dessert, I snuck inside with the candles I had bought in Cornellana and asked the waitress if she could make a birthday cake out of one of the desserts.
She was very excited, and when she came out with it lit and singing happy birthday, she told us that it was also her birthday next week. So I gave her a candle and she was thrilled. She (Angela) also gave us both a lovely little Camino care package, including a packet of tissues, a map, a little cake and a hand crocheted yellow arrow Camino broach.
As we got chatting, we asked her about tomorrow’s accommodation in Borres, as we were a little concerned about finding a bed there, after our problems here in Tineo. If we couldn’t get a bed there, the next accommodation after Borres would be 24.6k!
She told us that accommodation in Borres was very limited and advised that we should stop at Campiello, the village before.
We made a tactical decision to stop at Campiello, even though it would mean a very short day of 13k for us, especially as Angela told us that the owner of this bar had a niece who ran the albergue there. He duly called and reserved our beds.
When we met with the Italians for drinks, they also wanted to book in the same place, so I ran back to our dinner bar and managed to book them three beds too.
We decided to put a candle in the cakes that were given to us and we sang happy birthday again to Hamish, making it about the 10th time the Italians had sang it to him! Funnily enough, it turned out that it was also the birthday of another girl in the bar, so we sang happy birthday to her too!
Happy birthdays all round.
