It was a nice feeling to do a normal stage today. Just a normal 20 km stage, not too short and not too ambitious, with a normal profile, an average climb and an average descent.

What made it “not normal” was my lingering pain in the left knee. It’s still there. The masseur who helped me yesterday, Guillermo, told me that today was going to hurt but tomorrow it will get better.

So far, he’s been right. Today, however, was the easier of the two parts of that prophecy. I hope he will be right in the second part of his promise.

I have my doubts though. To me, the pain doesn’t feel “muscular”, or something that can be treated with a massage. It was worth a shot though, even just to take the idea of “what could have been” out of my mind, should I have rejected the idea of the massage.

On the bright side, Laura is doing much better, only troubled by temporary and small amounts of pain, every now and then.

The day started out cloudy but warmed up quickly after 11 AM. We eventually arrived at our destination, Tapia de Casariego, at around 3 PM.

After a quick shower, we decided to go to the beach, a further 30 minutes walk from our room. This was our last shot at taking a dip into the Cantabrian Sea, so it was worth the extra effort.

When we arrived there, however, we realized that the water was not so good and there was some water getting pumped from the city and into the sea. Not the best.

Still, we made the best out of the situation by cracking a couple of beers and empanadas open, in order to celebrate the end of today’s walk.

Tomorrow we shall leave Asturias and finally enter Galicia. We will be less than 200 km away from Santiago. With the days we have at disposal, we are in no rush to get there, luckily.

Our goal is to try and enjoy this beautiful journey together, and not to think too much about coming back or getting a new knee fitted in my left leg.

I’m really eager to get back to Galicia though. Even though I’ll hate when I’ll be there because of the massive amount of turigrinos (tourist pilgrims), I’d like to spend a bit of time on the last part of the Camino Francés. I’m sure it will send me back to the last time I was there, in 2013.

First we have to get there though, which won’t be easy. The motivation to reach Santiago, however, will grow more and more as we approach the city.

I’m confident we’ll get there, but I am not counting my chickens yet. Anything can still happen.