Running by Camino Primitivo

  After completing our main run on the Camino del Norte, we decided to run the most beautiful part of the Camino Primitivo – a route highly praised by seasoned pilgrims. Over four days, we planned to run over 200 kilometers through the Cantabrian Mountains from the town of Lugo to Oviedo.

Interactive map of the route :

 From Finisterre, we hitchhiked to the town of Lugo in one day. Passing through the main square and the cathedral, we left the city...

  We spent the night under an old bridge in the best traditions of pilgrims...

 The next day, we started our run...

  Almost all the highland sections along our path were covered with wind turbines...

   By evening, we arrived in the town of Fonsagrada, where we stayed in an albergue for the night...

  Following our established routine, we went to the supermarket for groceries and cooked dinner on our mini stove...

  While running the Camino del Norte, we met a Frenchman named Jean at the Bilbao albergue, who was planning to divert to the Camino Primitivo. Due to our speed, we hoped to meet Jean on the way back. And we did meet him... 

  Monuments are not only for pedestrian pilgrims but also for those on two wheels...

 We also remembered meeting an Australian named Lynton near a picturesque reservoir... 

  Salime Reservoir...

  We ran across the 125-meter-high dam of the hydroelectric plant and continued our climb uphill...

  By evening, we arrived in the mountain village of Lago. To avoid getting our down sleeping bags wet, we spent the night under the porch roof of an unoccupied house. This turned out to be a great decision because we woke up in a thick fog the next morning. The clouds accompanied us for most of that day...

   Climbing higher into the mountains, we witnessed an optical phenomenon known as a Brocken spectre, where a person's shadow appears surrounded by a halo... 

  Descending, we arrived at the very picturesque town of Tineo...

  We stayed overnight in an albergue in the town of La Espina. We had wanted to stay in the albergue in the village of Bodenaya, which was a kilometer further, but it was full, so we returned...

  The albergue in Bodenaya was recommended by our pilgrim friend Jean. Despite not staying there, we ran there the next morning to chat with its owner, who had invited us for morning tea the day before. We had a great conversation, played a few songs on the guitar, and received a small task from our new friend. He asked us to deliver a small package to another albergue in the city of Oviedo. Thus, we became a sort of postal pilgrims...      

 On the last running day, we encountered peach trees for the first time. Only peaches were missing to complete our Spanish fruit bouquet... 

     Running through one of the settlements, we found these fashionable wooden clogs for moving through the swamp...

  

   We arrived in Oviedo, delivered the package to the specified address as promised, and went to meet our host (couchsurfing) who was hosting us...    
  The cathedral of the city...

  Our host in Oviedo was a girl from Peru named Helda, who had come to Spain for university. Leaving us alone at home, she went to training, and we, finding a scale, decided to see how many kilograms we had lost after our runs...

   The scale was clearly inaccurate, showing almost minus 8 kilograms for each of us. Nevertheless, we immediately started making up for the lost calories...

  The next day, we hitchhiked to Santander. We stopped for the night 20 kilometers from the city, on the balcony of an abandoned house. In the morning, we reached Santander...

   For the next two days before our flight, we rested on the Bay of Biscay, on one of the city's beaches...

   On the beach, we met a pair of emigrants from Russia who invited us to stay with them for the night... 

  The next evening, our airship departed to Ukraine, and we completely finished our Spanish Camino...