Navia-Aviles

Trip dist: 83 kms. Trip time: 6 hrs, 30 mins. Tot dist: 1041 kms.

Celebrations.

Hmm....it appears that The Danes have hit a snag. I hope Martin gets better soon. Knee injuries can be a serious buzzkill, so I've heard.

As for me, this day was a day of celebrating. For one thing, it's been one month exacly since I started my life as a vagabond. Pretty neat, huh? Today also marks the day of my 1000th kilometer anniversary, the momentous occasion which I marked by promptly stoping at the nearest rest stop and cheerioed with an ice-cream cone. Unfortunately, the fact that the nearest rest stop happened to be a gas station (for the nearest town/village was 15 kms away) rather destroyed the poetry of things a bit, but so what. {shrug}

And as if I needed more reason for celebrating, today I also rode the furthest I've ever ridden on one trip in my life! Cool, huh?

Anyway, the 120 kms of yesterday, it turns out, was indeed an extraordinary circumstance (one doesn't find 40 kms of downhills every day!), so today, and seeing how there are apparently no sizeable towns between Aviles and Oviedo, I rode only 82 kms and stopped at Aviles, for at 6 p.m. I still had 32 kms to go to Oviedo, and that was too close for comfort, even assuming the remaining road was flat (and it is not). I am, however, happy I did stop here. It is one of the most beautiful small towns I've seen so far in this trip, and when I arrived the main plaza was full of children and very happy people, which was refreshing (You can take a look at the video showing all the happy people here). I also met two girls from Barcelona at the pilgrim's refuge (they are the only ones staying there--no hotels/hostels near the downtown area--so hopefully the fact that they're girls and there's only two of them reduces the probability of lots of snoring a bit), and went to dinner with them, and so chattered away the evening.

Tomorrow, if I wake up shortly after sunrise, I may be able to arrive to Oviedo early enough, such that the whole day will not be wasted.