Salas to Tineo

My spirits were high the morning I'd left Salas.

The hostel I'd stayed in, the one by the church was amazing. Nice beds, clean new facilities, and the showers worked, not just worked but worked well.

My right foot now was blistered with the soft skin in between the big and middle toe, I left it to burst of its own volition as your supposed to do, and it did while I was showering, gory details.

The pad of the right was sore and the left was fine, though a bit biting as these things go. I oiled everything in vaseline, put on my inner socks, dry outer socks, and the boots were sufficiently dry.

Halfway up my first mountain I knew I was going to have trouble, my left foot as if in an act of revenge for being forced another day of up and down broke out into a blister in the exact same part as the right.

At least I know my weak parts in terms of toughening up my feet.

I stopped for lunch in La Espina, my last opportunity to eat before Tineo 7km away.

The town was ok, the cafe was good, and as I wolfed down my bocadillo, cafe, and vino tinto, and ibuprofen as desert.

As an aside Spanish Ibuprofen is like a cannon for a mosquito, 400mg reminds me of a cow pill.

The paths to Tineo were beautiful and very rural, passing through the diary farms that make up the countryside of the Asturias, my feet were killing me which colored everything with a tinge of angst.

At the mouth of a quagmire

By the time I reached Tineo, I hobbled to the Albergue and dropped all, my stuff and slept for a half hour.

The harsh reality that I couldn't or rather didn't want to repeat my misadventure today until my feet were on the mend.

This is also the point I became aware of time. As I ate my microwaved episcus macaroni, I became aware of the time as well. The road to Santiago was perhaps too ambitious for the time period I had. I was 3/4 of the way through the first 100km, in some cases the infrastructure is not in place for 25km per day, so you either have to do shorter or longer. So I don't think at this point I would be able to do the whole journey.

As with the hard reality of many things. This would mean I needed to change my focus on what I wanted to do.

The last 100km definitely, but also the crown jewel of the trip, the Hospitales. But first a day of rest.