“Este camino es NO BUENO.”

The pear shaped hospitalero repeated her warning for the third time. Her Vienna-Sausage-like finger tapped heavily on the crudely scaled map, again and again on the mountain route. She insisted that her guests use the new Camino, which tentatively followed a small highway around the base of tomorrow’s mountains. The old Camino followed the spine of a mountain ridge, aggressively up out of town, arcing over Asturian farmland, and quickly descended back to civilization about twenty kilometers later.

The raw flesh on my toes and the consistent throbbing of my feet said that maybe tomorrow’s 40k would be better done without a mountain in the middle

I nodded with a stiff neck, pushing a polite smile and agreeing to go her way.

“Si, si, vale, claro. Nuevo Camino.”

I can admit with no shame whatsoever that I lied.

The next morning I fought my way up the trails of crumbling limestone, closed in by invasive eucalyptus forest on both sides. An hour in, I was sweating for the first time in 600 kilometers. Perhaps the plump woman and her persistent finger were right.

Eventually the forest gave way, and I emerged shirtless and in shorts high above the surrounding country. To my left and right the earth fell away and in front of me it only rose.

Standing with my face towards the sun, I threw back my arms and head.

“WAAAAAAYYYOOOOUUUUUUUU!”

My howl was returned to me by the mountains, and soon the local farm dogs joined my comotion.

I pushed on up the ridge, gaining ever more altitude, following a path of shifty rock. Far below, between mountains and sea, the N-630-something highway slithered along. Most of my companions from the previous evening had taken that way. Surely they were congested by the hot pavement, and ever wary of lorries and little hatchbacks threatening to mow them down. The pavement also makes for some considerably tired pies.

The further I pressed into the sky, the more often I found myself looking in either direction, and smiling for no reason in particular.

The last of a persistent morning dew clung to the sagebrush lining the trail. Each little droplet refracted a tiny rainbow up at me. In a soft breeze, needles of white pines tickled each other. This thought made me giggle aloud.

“It’s quite a unique view up there. I would stay for a while.”

A gruffy man with a longbow in his passenger seat and a dog in the back had stopped along the road to advise me to change my course. Apparently a local farmer had added a few fletchas of his own to keep pilgrims away from his fields. The route led down the road to the main highway. I was pointed up a logging road, a steep one.

Before advancing I made sure to cross off the grumpy farmer’s arrows with a tube of red lipstick that Anne Dominguez left in my bag. (Sorry Anne, you’ll thank me later.)

Again, up, for another hour, up up up.

When I finally reached the pinnacle of the ridge, I took the man’s advice. I don’t usually take breaks, but here it was mandatory. To East and West the coast was written like sloppy handwriting; from beaches to walls of cliffs. Silent little waves continuously reappeared, from nothing, to breaking whitewater, into sand. The gummy bears in my sack of nuts were just icing on the mountaintop.

When in doubt, take the high road. When you get there, let rip your best mountain call, and give in to the urge to stay awhile.