St. James Primitive Way, Stage 05: Pola de Allande - La Mesa (Camino Primitivo)

Today's stage started in Pola de Allande, a charming village in the mountains. This is one of the Asturian villages from where in the late 19th and early 20th century part of the inhabitants emigrated to 'the Americas', mainly Cuba and the Dominican Republic, in search for a better life. The ones that came back, built large mansions, and some of them still remain in the village. Pola celebrates the day of the emigrant every year.

Not the longest so far, but today's stage is challenging because of the height difference: it starts with a tough ascend from Pola (500 meters) to Puerto de Palo (1100 meters). It's a beautiful hike through the hills and mountains. Although the track leads more or less parallel to the motorway, you almost don't see it. Besides, there's hardly any traffic, as Debora realized when she was driving up to search for Marcos. In Puerto de Palo, on top of the mountain, there was a super strong wind, which took your breath away, as did the views. Luckily, there's a small shelter to hide from the wind and eat some energy bars; thus far, and also in the following 10 km, there's no bar or place to buy food.

The ascend led over small paths, surrounded by flowering heather and summer flowers: beautiful! Also at this height, we found some cattle on the way. We met in Lago, a tiny village without much too see, except for the Tejo (mythical Asturian tree that you find in a lot of villages in Asturias, often declared Natural Monument because of their ancient ages).

From there, it's a few kilometers more to Berducedo with a few bars, a hostel and a nice playground for our kids. We stay in La Mesa, a few more kilometers down the road, where there is not much more than a hostel, so it's important to buy what you need in Berducedo.

From a distance, we could already see our accommodation for tonight: a beautiful, new hostel with both shared and private rooms. Because there's many people and not too many places (also due to reduced capacity because of Covid), some people need to sleep in a tent in the garden. Tomorrow, we continue our way towards Galicia.