Day 63 Serdio to E9 route camping in area with coves/cavenear Buelna

I knew today had so many great things in store for us!

We left Serdio a little late. Lisa made a special apple meal for breakfast and we were off, slowly...

The town's Chesnut Festival was going to start at 4PM and we joked we were willing to take a break day to enjoy it.

We stopped to ask this sweet man standing in his door way, which way was out of this sweet and simple town, and he actually went into his home for his cane and came out to show us by walking with us. The route out was about forty paces straight and take a right, it was so sweet him just grabbing the cane and dog to walk that with us. I'm from the DC area, Lisa is from Lyon a nice sized French city and this sweet guy felt the need to walk with us to get us safely on route.

This was a precious town, never on my radar before and just thrilled that we stopped here last night. We knew we would be spending our last hour or so with Lisa and Will.  We walked until their town to turn off and said our good byes... if they do take this detour it is unlikely we will see them again I think.

We hadn't said bye to them more than five minutes when one of the brightest personalities I have ever met came into our life. There are few pilgrims out, it is real off season so  it is exciting when you see one you jump with enthusiasm especially if you've never seen them before! On the side of the trail was a young guy named Raddick from Poland who we would quickly introduce ourselves to.



As we walked away I told the kids how much I loved his happy, smiling spirit. Within a half hour, Raddick was standing beside us and brought so much joy to our family.

One of our saddest experiences happened today, about an hour after meeting Raddick we were walking and on the side of the trail was a dog tied up with a note, two notes actually, one in English and one in Spanish. It said something to the effect that the police were coming for this abandoned dog today in case anyone wanted to take it.

It just about killed us the thought of this very sweet Australian shepherd(ish) puppy begging  and whining for attention, being left there with such a note. 

It's a weekend and most weekends the Spanish seem to all be out walking, but not today, there was no one we would see walking by to possibly help. 

I can only hope that being the breed it is someone will step forward as there are a lot of shepherd dogs in Spain. 

Then across from it in a yard was an adorable terrier sitting on a wall, tied up in its yard staring at this sweet pup.

  

Our new friend, Raddick, urged us to go on that he'd catch up. He seemed to imply he wanted more time to break and I think didn't want to smoke near the kids. This young twenty something year old had do much class in him that he later said with no big deal made that he didn't want my kids having to walk away from the dog leaving it, or seeing it left alone. So when my kids left the dog it was being loved on by Raddick. He admitted it was so hard for him to walk away from the dog. I love this kid!

 

I was really excited about the day as some of my favorite Norte stretch is a hidden gem after La Franca that  no one seems to know about or take. Raddick joined us for this section and we picnicked on the cliff, went thru caves, marveled at the beach within the cove and took photos on the arch above the special beach.

 

We didn't know where to sleep tonight, one of my favorite auberges was a few miles away in Pendueles but we were told the owner had already closed for the season. We decided to set up Sierra Madre hammocks and camp right there near the caves and beach , a true paradise of a place. During the night you could feel the condensation and even hear it as if rain so Reichen put up the Nubes which is the tent structure to our hammocks.

We really have been walking in a cloud now for two days. The weather forecast says no rain but honestly it might as well be raining with all of the condensation. The views from this E9 area were massively obstructed due to the fog and only a fraction of the beauty I saw last time, I knew what was there but possibly difficult  to be appreciated as you could barely see the water.