May 17th, 2017
Camping la Paz to Llanes
Km walked: 10
Km total: 366
We both slept well through the night listening to the waves crash into the beach below us. As we emerged from the tent, rain clouds threatened us in all directions, and the air was wet and dense.
We walked on a nice dirt and gravel path along the shore to Llanes, passing by a geological feature called a bufone, which is a blow whole. Sea water moves through low caves and gets sucked out of the top of rocks if the waves are big enough, shooting water 20 or 30 feet into the sky. The sea was calm unfortunately, so we weren’t able to observe it in action, but you could hear the waves and water moving underneath the ground, which sounded like a subway rumbling underneath a street.
It began raining shortly after, light at first, and then harder. We stopped and put on our rain jackets and put valuables into ziplock bags to protect them from the rain. We reached the town of Llanes around 11:30 and were lucky enough to check into our room at the Don Paco at that time. It is a swanky and gorgeous place, and one we have no business polluting with our stinky selves. A room here normally goes for 160 dollars, but since it is the off season still, and most of the rooms remained unfilled for the night, we were able to find a great deal for around 65 dollars.
We checked in and dropped off our things and went out into the city to find some lunch. We settled into a nice cafe and had sandwiches and salads, watching the rain come tumbling out of the grey and misty sky. People in black and blue and polka dot umbrellas walked quickly through the streets, as small cars navigated winding and narrow roads through ankle deep puddles, making low swishing and spraying noises.
It was nice to be dry and inside. On our way back we saw pilgrims walking with rain gear on, all wet and soaked, and we were happy to not be them.
It rained all day and into the night and only stopped for about 30 minutes right before dark, the sun trying to get a final punch into the drab and desolate grey world, failing heroically in a magnificent final burst. The world illuminated then, sparkling in the sliver of light, fractions of sunlight glimmering on wet cobble stone streets and off car doors, lasting but a brief moment in time.
The dark consumed the light again and the rain began to fall. Mountains beyond the city were obscured by a thick wall of smoke, but you could still see thier faint silhouette within the slow and undulating weather, looming just out of reach- a foreboding mass of rock and earth and forest, standing quiet and demanding, watching the entirety of the world around it.
We are small things on this earth, no more than a tiny pebble in the ocean, or a single atom in the body. The universe does not care about our happiness, so we have to try and find our own way there, through an impossible maze of feelings and emotions, fears and ambitions. What gives life meaning? What is this all about? These impossible questions hide within the shadows of our doubts, merely nagging away at our brains, like rain and wind eroding rock, slow and methodical and steady, never giving up.
Eventually it will all disappear. The rock will become a pebble, the very pebble in that large sea. It will float along and then settle at the bottom of the ocean, in a cold and dark place, to never be remembered. This is what has to happen- what will happen, and what has always happened. Time moves on. Things that once were suddenly cease to exist. And you realize that there is this concept called time that makes it all happen, this continuous force that pushes everything along.
And that’s when it becomes clear. You deserve to be happy- to find happiness. Because happiness erodes, like rock to sand. And if you weren’t there to experience it- to capture it, it will slip through your fingers like sand, and get washed away out to sea.
