Spanish holiday part 2: Pilgrimage

Camino del Norte, September 2018

Deba was the starting point of our actual pilgrimage to San Sebastian along the Camino del Norte. It was a little tricky finding the path to get started, and we were concerned for our onward progress when almost immediately we met a long-haired Jesus lookalike complete with wooden staff who stopped to talk to us at length. We imagined spending most of the route fending off other pilgrims going in the 'right' direction - we were going the 'wrong' way - but in fact he was the only devotee of the true path that we encountered.

A jolly party of Germans formed an arch of walking poles for us to walk through at one point, and there was the French couple who were walking the whole route and onwards home to France and had started about three weeks previously, and then there were the Americans who had rented bikes which they must have had to carry most of the way - hardly any of the path was in a fit state for cycling. Non-human encounters included the cat with a studded collar who complained loudly when we didn't wait for it, and the quizzical cow that I featured in a previous blog post.

We spent three days walking, and they were hard days, particularly the first when it drizzled just enough to make the steep muddy slopes too slippery to climb or descend easily - one such slope provided a rope to hang on to that helped us down. Thanks to J's satellite navigation and sports app, we know that we covered 14.5km including 728m ascent that day. By early afternoon we reached one of the significant geological sites on the route: a beach containing an exposed rock formation known as Flysch. We climbed about and took photos for a bit, but time was pressing and by the time we reached Zumaia we were definitely tired. Unfortunately our accommodation in a 'bungalow' on a campsite was a little way out of town and a long way uphill, but we were consoled by the thought that there would be a cafe on site.

There was a cafe on site, but it was closed. Never mind, they offered to supply us with pizza! And we could buy beer and snacks in the shop! After a lengthy introduction to the site Rules, which strongly emphasised their ecological credentials to the point that they were not going to give us a towel each (think of the damage we might do to the planet with a towel if we were not forced to share), we trudged even further uphill to the 'boongalo'. It was small with two rooms we'd already agreed to share, but to get hot water in the shower required the sink tap to be turned on at the same time and even then it wasn't very reliable. Mr M started to feel very ill at that point, and he generously allowed us to share his streaming nose, sneeze and cough for the rest of the holiday as one by one we succumbed.

Lola II was dispatched to collect the pizzas at the appointed time, and she returned with only three instead of the four we had ordered. She had watched as the four sad, frozen pizzas were put in the oven, and watched again as three had been transferred to the boxes and the fourth slowly slid onto the floor (a replacement was delivered to the door some time later). This was definitely not the best meal of the holiday, but we were tired and hungry (and in Mr M's case, ill) and we retired early.

The next day we were booked for lunch in a fancy fish restaurant in Getaria. The seaside town was rather lovely and had an interesting church, and were it not for the need to make progress I would have liked to spend more time there. The fish was good too. Our next stop was at a cafe on the sea front in Zarautz, and we made good time to arrive at our overnight stop in Orio, looking forward to anything but pizza. The booking had been changed at short notice to a pension on the edge of town which turned out to be lovely, and very luxurious compared with the boongalo. It wasn't as difficult a day as the first - further in distance (18.2km) but much less ascent and descent. We got ourselves clean and tidy and set out to find provisions for the evening.

For some reason, there were no cafes or restaurants open in the whole of Orio on that Tuesday night, and we looked quite hard. Eventually we decided to stage a picnic and bought bread and cheese and meat and olives and fruit and cakes, and prepared to take them back to our room - but the cheese was in a large, hard lump, and due to having brought cabin luggage only on the flight over we had nothing that would serve as a knife. Luckily we had struck up a conversation with the server in the bakery, so we went back there and they kindly lent us a knife to cut up the cheese.

The third day of walking was the shortest (13.35km) but still with significant climbs. We indulged Mr M by agreeing on a detour that would take us to Monte Igueldo for our first sight of the beautiful bay of San Sebastian. Monte Igueldo is the location of San Sebastian's 'amusement park', and thus charged a fee for us to go in even though none of the rides was open. I have never seen a sadder amusement park, except perhaps in Scooby Doo cartoons. The view of the bay and the ice cream we ate there were both very lovely though. We had arrived! Now for the Film Festival...

Photo credits: all except the top one were taken by Mr M.