The standard plan proposed by the travel agency specified a walk to Baiona on the third day. However I saw that this was a distance of 33 km. So I elected to insert an overnight after 12 km at Oia. With their Internet order form, it was easy to customise the walk to my preference.
The path ran along the oceanside from the harbour.
The ocean was wild but fortunately no spray reached us.
There were many fellow pilgrims on this section.
Our oceanside promenade ran in parallel with the coastal road.
About an hour in we passed this puzzling structure off the coast. I jokingly speculated to a fellow pilgrim: swimming pool for pilgrims. And more seriously, perhaps an enclosed pond to keep fish fresh. As it turned out, I wasn't too far off. It is a cetárea, a shellfish nursery. So the ancient people who lived here knew how to farm seafood.
Here the path ascended up a slope to a rest area where I took a break to eat some dried fruits and nuts, and take in the view.
At the top of the road, the camino became part of the coastal road. The path has been painted yellow so that drivers can be careful to keep their distance.
About an hour in we reached Área de descanso peregrino de San Atilano. I think you can work out what descanso and peregrino mean.
A map showing the route and how far we had come.
There was a cafe and toilets. And great views to the ocean.
It's sparsely populated. No doubt the pilgrim traffic provides work for some locals.
I think this was a parking area as the cafe is used by road traffic also.
Walking past these meadows I realised how used I am to availability of transport. If I can only do 20 km of walking in a day, then a peasant in old times without a transport animal would be limited in how far they could go. Perhaps a few km around their home.
They would have spent all their lives within a small radius of their home. Whereas I had continent-hopped to walk the Camino.
We left and rejoined and left the yellow concrete path on the main road a few times. I laughed to myself thinking: Goodbye Yellow Concrete Road at the partings of ways.
Off the main road again, I noticed this house with a buddha in the garden. I think it was a meditation centre. Or a devout buddhist lived there.
A natural buddhist who deigned to pose for me.
About this time it started raining more heavily; it had been drizzling for the past half hour. I put on my rain poncho and reached the village of Oia with a wet jacket. Might as well take lunch here, I thought. It was pretty good.
The hotel was however another 4 km further up the road so as soon as it dried up a little, I pushed on.
Finally the Hotel Glasgow hove into view.
I had moved into my small but adequate room when the counter clerk appeared. Apparently there was to be a communal salsa event that evening and they had decided to offer me a room in an annex to avoid the noise in the main building. More space too. Very kind of them. I had a view outside like this.
The light is fantastic as these photos were taken around sunset.
Dinner was quite tasty. I got this fish soup for starters.
The main was pork cutlets with chips and vegies.
And that was my third day on the Camino. This was an easy stage with beautiful coastal scenery and justified my choice of the coastal route. It was a great day, rain notwithstanding.
I had already covered almost ⅓ of the total route.
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