After a nice dinner and some sleep, we all started to assemble for our respective journeys. I was the only biker, so I walked with the pack until we'd crossed over on the ferry towards Santender. The morning started out later, which only exacerbated the brutal heat. Luckily, the path was fairly flat and it even went downhill for a chunk. I applied sunscreen 3x before lunch time and watched it slowly drip off my arms under the scrutiny of the relentless heat. It was damn hot, over 100 degrees later in the afternoon. I biked through a few small villages and just baked in the heat. As a Floridian, I've encountered my fair share of hot days, but this was awful. I ate extra because I could feel the calories leaving my body so quickly. At some point in the middle of nowhere, I asked for directions from a woman who was harvesting fruit from her tree. She spoke too quickly for me to understand, but it was clear to me that she was telling me to stay at an Albergue for the night because in was too hot. She was probably right, but I also had a limited amount of days so stopping would entail doubling my distance the next day. I told her I had to keep going and she offered me some fruit from her tree. It was so beautiful and I was so grateful. I biked another 20km to Santender.
There was another ferry crossing about 10km before Santender, and I sank into my seat out of relief. Time on the water in the shade of a boat gave me a chance to sort through my next steps. I met another biker from England and we chatted pleasantly for a while. I checked the weather again and it said the temperature would keep rising, which was disheartening. I also learned from the previous day to check elevation charts because holy wow that would be important. I read, "The next 35km after Santender are some of the most difficult on this trail because the elevation changes are so abrupt and so frequent." Well that's cool...
Once the boat landed, I kept biking, knowing deep down that I was probably lying to myself about going forward. Within 15 minutes of biking I could feel the sun burning my arms. I looked at the next part of the path that I could see and finally consenting to what my body had been whispering all along. "You need to take a bus. If you push me today I'll refuse tomorrow, so sort it out." In another season of life, I would've stubbornly pushed through and ignored my body, or at the very least, I would've shrunk into a bitter, resentful sense of defeat for giving up. The great news is that I don't live in that world anymore. So I biked to the train station and bought a ticket to Oviedo, shaving off about 100km from my ride. I looked down at the back of my calves once I positioned my bike in the rack and realized that I definitely made the right decision. They were covered in bruises from pushing my bike up the mountain trails. My skin was burned and my thoughts were largely centered around doubting if I could finish the ride in time. So I breathed deeply and watched the scenes passing by, leaning into rest.
On the train, I met a man from Belgium who teaches English and travels around with his life on a bike. He told me about his family and his experiences as a Belgium kid in the US and about the transition back to Belgium. His nomadicism was inspiring solely because of the way he lived into the hospitality and adventure of it. He wasn't running from anything, he was just happy to live in a part of the world that was so beautiful. We sat next to each other for the remainder of the right, parting ways just a stop before my own.
The sun was starting to set when I got to Oviedo so I quickened my pace because yellow arrows are harder to find in the dark. I found the seminary and got settled in for the night. My plan at this point was to just start on the Camino Primitivo, since it would be shorter and ensure that I'd get back to Madrid on time. The man at the desk sadly informed me that the Primitivo is not bike friendly at all, so if I didn't want to push my bike up the unpaved trails, I would needed to bike back north to the Camino Del Norte, to Aviles specifically. I wasn't thrilled about that, but I think the train ride had helped me recalibrate a little bit. And it gave my body a chance to rest. I was bummed but not shattered and that's a pretty good place to start a bike ride. My roommate in the dorm was very kind and helped me practice my Spanish before I left. She also suggested that at some point in my life, I was the Camino because you experience the sensations so differently. I made a note and finally took a long deserved showering before calling it a night
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