A Postcard from... Basque Country Pt. 2
Stories from my first week on the Camino del Norte - Pt. 2
Four days doesn’t seem like much, but time seems to run differently on the Camino. When the stresses of life (work, phone, etc..) get removed, time seems to run slower in the best way. That being said, by four days in I was starting to understand the daily routine of breakfast, walk, lunch, walk some more, shower, laundry, dinner, sleep. For how “mundane” that might seem to some, everyday was like waking up to a new adventure - new places to walk, new places to sleep, and new people to meet.
If you missed Basque Country Pt. 1 - Read here!
Camino Pt 1: Basque Country
127 miles | 6,025 meters (19,767 feet) of gain | 7 days
Irun - San Sebastian - Zarautz - Deba - Markina - Pozueta - Bilbao - Pobeña
Markina - Pozueta - 25 miles
Our good ol' musty church basement albergue provided us with a piece of white bread and jam for breakfast. Since it was Sunday the day before, we took what we could get, as there wasn’t any other food available. While we were eating, our favorite Catalonian man informed us that the town we had planned to go to, Gernika, didn’t have any open albergues because they were closed for construction. That left us with two options: either walk three miles farther than we had intended or cut our day almost in half and stop at an albergue much earlier than planned. Since the Swedish girl we bunked with had given me tape to support my ankles—and I was feeling great—we opted for the longer option. I messaged our friend Erik from the day before, letting him know where we intended to stop and told him to reserve a spot as well.
We set off into a beautiful sunny morning with a handful of people from our Albergue - everyone seemed eager to escape the musty basement… Within the first few miles we made it to a beautiful monastery where Erik had ended up staying the night before, complete with a one eared cat, a stamp for our pilgrim passport and beer if we wanted one. We passed as it was early in the morning but a funny combo in my opinion. All three of our favorite Spanish "Uncles" (as we called the three men in their 60s, including the Catalonian man, whom we’d seen every day and who looked out for us like we were their kids). We walked and “talked” with them, doing our best to communicate using broken Spanish and what little English they spoke laughing over our mistranslations. One thing about the Uncles, though is that they are FAST walkers. All three are multi-Camino veterans, and I’m convinced they could run the whole thing if they wanted to. Eventually, we split off from them, and it was just Ana and me for the rest of the day.
We made it to the town of Gernika, about 22 miles in, by late afternoon. There was a grocery store there in which we grabbed ourselves a massive late lunch and some snacks for the next day and by the grace of god, there was an open pharmacy (most stores are closed in the late afternoon for siesta) in which I was able to buy some KT tape for my arches. KT tape being a kind of sports therapeutic muscle tape designed for pain relief and muscle support (I’ve used it in my triathlon training) because by the time we got to town, I was, again, hobbling. Shoutout to Ana for sticking by me with my feet because I am sure it would’ve been easy to leave me in the dust as I was walking slower than a snail. After we were happily full and had rested a bit, we trekked the last three miles to Pozueta, which I am not sure if this is a town or just the name of the Albergue, but it made my top three favorites on the camino for sure.
We were greeted by the Uncles who had made it there just a bit earlier than us, Erik, and some other friends we’d met along the way. A small place with only 16 beds, it was fun that we knew everyone, and as we were the slow pokes of the day it was like a fun welcoming committee for us. When we arrived we opted to not have the dinner they provided as we’d just stuffed ourselves on a late lunch (my one regret of the camino because it looked incredible and we really missed out on that one), but as everyone ate dinner, we found a massive puzzle that I worked on with a few other people - barely speaking any English but luckily puzzles seem to be universal. After dinner finished up, I joined everyone inside and we all gathered around the table talked about where we were headed the next day before getting ready for bed. Ana and I were put in a room with the three Uncles and had an absolute blast laughing until we all fell asleep after our longest day on the Camino, almost walking a marathon in length.
Learning Point #9: ALWAYS get the albergue dinner
Pozueta - Bilbao - 18 miles
Unlike dinner, we opted for breakfast at our Albergue. An array of yogurts, cereals and pastries, it was absolutely splendid compared to the plain toast and jam we’d been getting at most other places. Perks of a private albergue vs a public one I guess.
This was our first actual rainy day - enough for me to put on my raincoat and, for the first time, my hiking pants, before we even left. With hoods up and backpack covers on, Ana, the Uncles and I headed out until, as usual, they took off like the wind.
Ana and I had thought about skipping Bilbao, since we were enjoying the small towns and countryside, and I’d already sent a couple of days there, but we didn’t fully knock the idea all together. However, when we reached the town we had considered staying in, about 10k before Bilbao, it was only 11 and the albergue didn’t open until 3:00 in the afternoon. We weren’t too keen on waiting in the rain for the next four hours so we decided we’d continue on after an early lunch. While we were snacking, Erik meandered by as we’d left him behind that morning as he seemed to be one to sleep in. He joined us, and we differed we’d all venture into Bilbao together and find a place to stay.
That was easier said than done as it seemed there were no albergues in town and everywhere listed on the Buen Camino app was fully booked for the evening. Luckily, I was able to find us three beds in a normal hostel with clean sheets, fresh towels and a kitchen where we could make our first homemade dinner of the Camino - felt like luxury living if I am being honest. We arrived by early afternoon, dropped our bags, took long hot showers after trudging through mud all day and then decided to walk around old town Bilbao. We visited the local cathedral, free for pilgrims (what a perk), and grabbed groceries for dinner on the way back. When we made our way into the kitchen to start cooking, there were three other people our age who all mentioned they were pilgrims on the Camino as well! They’d all been in Bilbao for a few days resting or nursing injuries. It was fun to chat all evening and get to know them.
Learning Point #10: Check albergues in advance for bigger cities (this comes in very handy later on)
Julien, a guitar player from the Netherlands, Corinna, a second time Camino hiker from Germany, and Gordon, a world traveler originally from Wisconsin who grew up spending his weekends in Door County (small world) were cooking their group dinner. The six of us decided to share our meals and swap stories around the hostel kitchen table for multiple hours. It was great to not only find others our age but to sit together like one big family, even though half of us had met that night.
Bilbao - Pobeña - 18.5 miles
Leaving Bilbao was an exciting day for me because, up until that point, I didn’t really feel like a “pilgrim.” I know it sounds off - I’d already been walking for a week - but it was mostly because everyone past today would be new and unknown. Not that the prior week hadn’t been unexpected, but since I had flown into Bilbao and spent a couple days there before heading to Irun, it didn’t feel entirely unknown. It was like I had made a big circle, but now there was new road ahead.
Leaving Bilbao was also extremely ugly. Both friends and the Buen Camino app had warned us about the industrial road walking - a section many people skip - but Ana and I were determined to walk the entire route, so off we went, straight into the construction zone. To be fair, we had about a mile of walking through town and past the Guggenheim museum which was cool - but it went downhill quick from there. We left Erik at a. Bus stop in Bilbao as he had forgotten his passport at the monastery from a few days earlier and needed to go back to retrieve it although he promised he’d catch up to us by the end of the day.
When we arrived, Corinna and Gordon were already there as they had bussed past the industrial area so we we chatted to them while throwing in a load of laundry (bless the laundry machine), showered, and got ready for dinner. Erik showed up, passport in hand, just in time for us to head to the one restaurant in town to have a large pilgrim menu dinner. Us and a few other people from the albergue headed over and when we walked inside, none other than Steve Irwin from the bus to Irun was eating there on his own so we told him to pull up a chair and join our table.
Cue: Friedrich - Fritz for short. Fritz is from Germany, started med school this October (as I am writing this now), and has the most contagious laugh of anyone I’ve ever met. He’s the baby of our friend group at only 21 (I am sure he loves being called that) and a hilarious story teller which we quickly learned after he WAS chased by the crazy goat and had taken a video of himself to prove it. He showed early on that he would be providing loads of entertainment for the rest of the Camino. He was also an attendee of the infamous Rammstein concert in San Sebastián, the one that had me delaying my start by a day - turns out he’s a big fan.
We spent dinner getting to know him and as we were sitting around the table with people from the US, Poland, Sweden, Germany, Australia, and Denmark, we somehow got on the subject of what noise does each animal make in your country. I am sure we annoyed everyone else in the restaurant as we laughed and argued about the most ridiculous noises - the most memorable being the Polish “how how” for what a dog says.
After dinner we all made our way back to the Albergue, we ended up being on the less packed and significantly less smelly side (thank god). It was here that I ended up taking one of my favorite pictures of the Camino (see below) - not because its glamorous, but because it has my entire friend group in it before we even knew one another. Ana and I had a bunk together, Erik was across from us next to Fritz and across from Ana was Joachim who we didn’t yet know but would soon become one of our closest friends. Its just our backpacks next to our bunks but they became backpacks I knew so well, its funny we were all together before we even knew it.
After a week in Basque Country, our friend group was continuing to grow and the Camino was getting more and more fun by the day.