We woke up to an incredible breakfast overlooking the plaza below. This is when I learned always say yes to orange juice. It seems everywhere in Spain presses their own OJ and it is fantastic! We stuffed ourselves, even taking a sandwich to go.
Before we left town, I got us lost and paid for it by having to walk back past our hotel. The day started with climbing up to a pass and, while gradual, was still pretty difficult. My moms hips were hurting from carrying her pack so she wrapped her puffy jacket around her waist as padding.
Finally I felt like she understood when I say 'function over fashion'. A few miles into the day I realized her shirt was inside out and hilariously said 'sweat life' across her backside. If you know my mother, you know she doesn't like to sweat so I just about died with laughter. It was day filled with pavement walking and our feet ached from the miles the day before. The morning was okay but by mid afternoon we were about spent. We took a break by a fountain and were lucky enough to play with some stray kittens in the area (the turkey from our sandwiches helped).
We experienced our steepest terrain that day and it was very apparent to me how much my body no longer trusted my legs to move safely. I felt fragile, something I've never felt before. I blamed moving slower on my mom but I knew that I couldn't go much faster without her. We got dumped out onto a road and I felt like I could barely walk. I put all my weight on my trekking poles just to get into the next town where we could stop for a beer. Unfortunately everytime we made it to a cafe, my mom wanted to go "just a little further" to the next one until we were nearly out of town.
It seemed like everyone that lived in town was there and many came up to ask us about out trek. After a beer and some advil and a lot of foot rubbing we kept moving. By the time we got to our hotel I could barely stand. We were staying at the oldest building in town. It looked like a castle and was surrounded by cobblestone streets. We didnt even shower before finding some place to eat so we wouldn't have to wait till nine or later. We sat on a terrace looking over the river through town and ate the most delicious pizza. The crust was made of freshly baked bread paired with a traditional Asturian cheese.
We finally got a shower and crawled into bed, turning out the lights before 8 PM. We would both wake up around 2 AM to stretch, drink more water, and finish off the rest of the pizza before crashing again.
Stats:
Grado to Salas
Miles: 15.5
Steps: 39,224
Dog Sightings: 14
Times my Mom mentioned she loves cow bells: 4