Markina to Bilbao on El Camino Del Norte

The hooting of an owl woke us up at 5:00am. My aumakua (animal spirit guardian) had been with us last night.

As we hiked it became evident that the cow bell was the sound of the pasturelands up here. All the farm animals including cows, horses, donkeys, goats and sheep have cowbells around their necks and whilst walking in a herd it sounds like a cowbell orchestra.

We made it into Markina town for breakfast and met "peregrines" from England who were fun to chat with and had previously hiked two other Caminos as well as Hannah from Germany, a young woman  hiking solo. It is a bit of a struggle being a vegetarian in Basque Country as almost every dish has meat in it except for "pan patata tortilla" which is a fried potatoe and corn slice stuffed between two slices of white bread. Nevertheless, It tastes delicious.

Making our way through the town we came across an unusual park with really weird exercise contraptions. Like a chair with pedals in front of it that had no resistance and a wheel that you turn to do arm circles with, once again without resistance.

Lots of paved walking today interspersed with trail hiking. Loads of ups and downs, usually ups as the Camino takes you past huge churches and monasteries many of which are strangely abandoned and locked up and most of which are on top of steep hills.

It was quite a social hiking day as we met  couples from England and Sweden.

Late in the afternoon we arrived in Gernika, a town that was almost obliterated by bombing in 1940. Apparently Franco, ruler of Spain allowed Hitler to use Gernika as a bombing target practice. Most of the buildings were destroyed and many residents were killed. After this terrible sequence of events, the city was eventually rebuilt and 76 years later I am standing here marveling at how humans bounce back. Hearing this history gave me my message for the day: whatever appears to be destroyed can always be rebuilt because of the incredible strength of the human spirit.

Onwards and upwards out of Gernika we hiked in the early evening trying to make it to a monastery located about 6-7 km away. 

Our legs felt weak and our feet ached but the thought of sanctuary for the night kept us going. When we arrived there we found yet another abandoned and boarded up church with an overgrown yard. 

Exhaustion and hunger helped make the decision to camp in the grounds of the abandoned church. After a tasty meal of Backpackers Pantry Pad Thai and some fresh bread and cheese we settled down to another night of camping the Camino, which I might add is not for the faint of heart. There are very few suitable camping spots and we have been very lucky so far! Most of the land is privately owned.

Discussions about "best gear in our pack today" have led to differing items depending on what we experienced on each day. These items have included a tent on day 2; the sawyer water filter on day 3 which allowed us to collect and drink water from a pipe spring and thereby camp, or else we would have had to make it into a town and electronic recharging packs on day 4 which has kept our phones charged without having to sit in a town and waste time waiting for our phones to be recharged from a wall plug. The knife Josh bought at the Decathlon store in Paris enroute has proved invaluable.

The camp was struck at 07:30 am after a restless night for me. I woke up at 03:00am and was a bit spooked by our surroundings but fortunately eventually went back to sleep for another hour and a half. We're planning on sleeping at an albergue or pension 

tonight so that we can shower and do laundry. We've kept remarkable clean by doing sponge baths in the tent with wet wipes, but I would like to wash my hair.

After a breakfast of bread and cheese, we're out of here in the crisp, moist morning air after Josh is done with threading the blisters on his feet to collapse them. Fortunately we have a first aid kit with needle, thread, alcohol wipes and iodine which will hopefully prevent infection from these nasty little nuisances.

 We hiked with a pair of Austrians all the way into the big bustling city of Bilbao. In the Oldtown section of the city called Casco Viejo we found a lovely room in a Pension in an old art deco building. 

I could not leave Bilbao without going to the Guggenheim Museum and to our good fortune it was a free entrance today, so after dropping off our backpacks we hot hoofed it across this exquisite grand Basque city and did a walkabout through the exhibits.

 There was a disappointing Andy Warhol exhibition and an extremely dark psychological exhibit called "The Universe of Eloise Bourgeois".

 It was a treat to see the sculpture "Puppy" in person and wonderful to stroll back along the river to get to our favorite European store, the mega sports "Decathlon" to buy a few sports bars and resupplies. 

I'm sitting at a laundromat typing out this story on my phone. 

Tomorrow we leave Bilbao towards Portugalete. It looks like a long city street walk but that could be fun too. 

My lesson today was political and historical and the Basque people's liberation and self determination movement is very strong:

Adios for now and see you later along the Camino.

Elorriaga to Markina (el Camino del Norte)

After a blissful night's sleep at Behatokia Point, we said a message of thanks for our sanctuary and set off again at 08:00 am in the chilly morning air.

Presently we were accompanied by another Gabriel from Italy and enjoyed exchanging stories with him for a couple of miles until we parted ways. 

Today's hike was not easy. We climbed so many steep mountains and had so much elevation gain and descent over 20 miles/32km that my legs and feet feel hammered. 

Josh has about four blisters developing in his toes and we're hoping that they don't get much worse.

Unfortunately we missed a trail marker just after the seaside town of Deba and hiked an extra 3 miles along and up an extremely dangerous highway that felt suicidal as there was no shoulder and huge trucks were hurtling past us at high speed. It just didn't feel right and after about a mile and a half we realized that we hadn't seen any trail markers for awhile. I checked my Camino app and discovered we were way off course. 

Josh had even asked a bus driver who was parked along the way whether we were going in the right direction or not and he answered "Si. Si." Yeah right! The lesson learned was how easy it is to miss a marker and we're going to be more vigilant from now on.

Lunch was at an extremely nice Albergue with very friendly people working there. Our use of the Spanish language is improving daily due to necessity.

At some point we said to each other that if at an intersection and one wondered which path to take to be on the Camino, the correct choice would be the steep one going up!  I would not recommend this trail for anyone wishing to walk along an undulating path. This is a strenuous hike.

Our message today spray painted  on a large pipe was "Free your mind"

As we neared the town of Markina we walked past an extremely creepy abandoned house which made us speed up our pace. It gave us the willies and exuded a very awful energy. We didn't even want to look back at the windows once we had passed it, for fear of what we might see.

At about 8pm, as we reached the outskirts of a town we found an awesome spot to "wild camp", sheltered from the wind, in a pine forested area.

Josh couldn't wait for his Mountain House pasta again and we settled down to sleep at about 10 pm, just as it started getting dark, grateful for another day of a great experience on the Camino, keeping up our mileage goal and another wonderful campsite. 

Buen Camino!

Elevation profile:

Donostia to Elorriaga (el Camino del Norte)

We left San Sebastián/ Donostia just as the sun rose after thanking our new friend for his incredible hospitality.

It was a very steep climb out of the city after which the Camino varied from paved road to single track trail paths to jeep tracks, rocky trails and more paved roads. 

We met fellow hikers today who were mostly friendly and mostly Spanish speaking and Jose from Portugal. 

There was even a man pulling a cart behind him who is headed all the way to Santiago, so I named Cartman. A handful of cyclists were also riding the Camino on mountain bikes. 

The morning took us over the mountains and down to the village of Orio, a seaside town which obviously has a strong fishing and seafaring history as every second balcony was decorated with large fishing nets and marine themed ornaments like oars and sailing ropes. 

It was 11:00 am and the church bells were ringing as we meandered through the narrow roads and passed by what looked to be the entire community standing outside the church in their Sunday best. It seemed very social and everybody appeared to know each other.

Lunch was enjoyed in the seaside town of Zarautz in a bustling, noisy tavern beside a village square bursting with people and festivities. A spectacular wide beach and beautiful bay is one of the stunning features of this town.

Upon leaving Zarautz we decided to take the alternate route to the next town along the ocean side as opposed to up and over the mountain.

 A 4km pedestrian walkway stretches between the two towns along the seafront like a balcony and is well utilized by locals and holiday makers alike. At this point I'd like to mention that I have not noticed any out of shape people here and I believe the reason is that they all love to walk. We see locals going for walks everywhere. For example some families will walk from one village to the next to eat at a tavern. Walking seems to be a daily activity of enjoyment for a large percentage of the population. 

Between villages we saw this message inscribed on a rock: "It's not what, it's how."

At one of the Albergues along the way that we stopped off at to get a stamp in our Camino passport or "Credential", we ran into Phillip and Gabriel again, who, as they told us had a bit of a rough start to their walk. After we had parted ways in Irun, they had also got onto the wrong trail and inadvertently hiked north to the French border. Upon realizing their mistake, they back-tracked on to the Camino Del Norte and by the time they reached San Sebastián there were no beds to be had anywhere, so they continued walking through the night. Phillip described how they tried to sleep at a bus shelter and a station but where moved on by police. The poor guys where exhausted and weren't going to budge until tomorrow. He said that he wished he'd had a tent.

Josh and I continued hiking until 7:45pm hoping to find a safe place to camp and we did! Just as we thought it was getting a little late we came across a park and a 500m walk to a spectacular scenic outlook which was completely hidden. 

Beside the outlook was a cozy forest offering shelter from the wind. We set up our Big Agnes Flycreek UL3 beneath the trees and after enjoying a tasty Mountain House meal of Pasta Primavera and half a Cliff Builders bar each, settled in for the night....our first stealth camping night on the Camino!

It was cold and the wind was blowing. My new sleep system definitely has pros and cons. To inflate the mattress it requires immense effort to blow it up and I haven't managed to do it on my own yet, always ending up giving it to Josh to blow up. Once inflated though, its extremely comfortable. My sleeping bag is definitely not warm enough for this weather and I have to wear multiple layers of clothing and use my silk sack to give me extra warmth. Josh was toasty warm in his REI Travel Down sleeping bag and his sea to Summit Thermolite Reactor Plus sleep sack.

So far our bodies are mostly holding up. Josh has sore toes and painful spots on his back. My feet and legs are a bit sore and I need to place strips of moleskin on my clavicles. My injury from the fall I had seems to be minor much to our relief!

We are extremely grateful for our tent, safe passage, completing over 20mikes/32km today and each other's company. Buen Camino

El Camino del Norte: Irun to San Sabastian

An overnight train took us to the French- Spanish border town of Irun in Basque Country where our hike officially started.

The air temperature was fresh and chilly as we arrived in a rain soaked landscape after an uncomfortable 11 hour train journey on reclining seats which seemed comfortable at first but as the night progressed we squirmed about in our seats in a fitful state of insomnia. It had taken us 3.5 days of planes and trains to get to this starting point and we were already exhausted.

During the last stages of our train ride we met another Camino hiker who didn't speak English but he smiled and shared some dried figs with us. We learned that he was Gabriel from Italy.Then Phillip from France hopped onto the train too, forming a merry bunch of "pilgrims " as the hikers are called.

Our shells which are the symbol of the trail are secured to our packs.

Once off the train the other two sped off into the distance never to be seen again (or so we thought), and we struggled to find the start of the trail, eventually coming across two Camino trail signs, each pointing in different directions. 

We picked the route that seemed to have the better trail markings thinking that it was the Camino Del Norte Route and immediately started climbing up steep mountainous terrain in the pouring rain.

The day took us up and over too many steep hills to count, past verdant farm lands where almost everyone had their own personal veggie garden and apple trees where in bloom all the way. 

We passed through very few villages but one in particular seemed a stronghold for independence from Spain.

 Everyone we encountered were super friendly and helpful even if we couldn't understand each other's language as many Basque people speak their own language, Euskara and not Spanish. 

As we went through one village a large 10 piece band was performing in the town square, blasting out a Basque version of "Sweet Home Alabama ". 

Onwards and upwards we went, high up into the mountains and did not encounter any other hikers. 

The trail was sodden with ruts in the jeep tracks filled with muddy water. As we descended on one of these tracks, I slipped on an area of slick clay mud and fell hard, the pain that ensued made me think I had broken either my knee or tibia and I lay in the mud trying to regroup while extreme pain seared through my being, thinking that there was a potential that our hike might be cut short on day one! Fortunately nothing was broken and I was able to continue on. 

Eventually we did come across a father-daughter duo of pilgrims, both named Renee. They marveled at meeting two other hikers on the Camino Vasco Del Interior or (Tunnel Route), an upcountry, interior trail from Irun that eventually joins up with the Camino Frances. It was at this point that we truly realized our mistake but fortunately there was another branch of the trail that rejoined the Camino Del Norte at Donostia (San Sebastián). 

After hiking this trail for another couple of hours we reached the beachfront of Playa la Concha in this extraordinarily beautiful Basque city. 

No campsites were in evidence so we went around to all the hostels and Pensions but everything was booked out. Just as we were planning to stealth camp along the city edge inbetween some wet bushes in the pouring rain, we tried one last ditch effort to get shelter at an establishment which shall not be named by request from the man who works there as he allowed us in and let us sleep in an empty conference room for free including a shower and laundry. Once again I am encountering an abundance of human kindness in this walkabout and we experienced our first Camino Angel. Mucho Grascias to this wonderful human being.

Best item in our backpacks by far are our trekking umbrellas!