Camino del Norte, day six

Guernica to Lezama

Wednesday May 10, Day six, Guernica to Lezama

A rainy day climb.

We modern pilgrims who like to utilise the internet at the end of the day, tend to get cranky when the promised wifi isn’t fit for purpose. 

That’s the case today, but it’s not the only reason to get cranky.

For the third consecutive night we’re in a so-called Casa Rural, or Hotel Rural.

That means we’re out of town. These establishments are angling for the pilgrim traffic. It’s probably understood that these people will be walking (unless there’s some sort of denial going on). They will be walking a long way. It may be raining. It may have been extremely muddy. They may be tired and grumpy on arrival. They apparently don’t have cars.

It isn’t very charming to find on arrival that there’s no supermarket within two kilometres. Ditto for restaurants that don’t open until 7.30pm or 8pm anyway.

I’m less than charmed.

Extra insulation underfoot.

Today we waded through mud up to our ankles. When we arrived, we cleaned our shoes as best we could. I took off my wet socks and enjoyed the blessed cool breeze on my puckered toes, then realised I’d left my walking pole downstairs.

I went down to get it, only to be told in the most shrill terms that I had to put shoes on.

Yeah, right, those wet muddy things I left upstairs? Just tell me where my pole is.

You must have shoes!

I refrained from my most Gallic of oaths, this isn’t France after all (but that’s another story I’ll get to shortly). I marched across the foyer in my most outraged pose, seized my pole, glared, and marched back upstairs - as you would.

So - today we left Casa Rural Intxaupse. As it was out of Guernica, our booking company had organised a taxi to take us from the Camino route last night and then back to central Guernica this morning.

It was a little late for our pilgrim schedule, but the rest of the world doesn’t seem to understand the protocols involved.

We got under way just before 9am. We knew it was at least 15km to the first food and we had nothing except chocolate, but we saw a bakery on the outskirts of town and bought some gooey little chocolate muffins.

Immediately after that, the pavement stopped, the rain started and we headed uphill.

Over the next two kilometres or so, we slogged our way up 300m of altitude in muddy, slippery and wet conditions.

Things levelled out after that. We got back on to paved surfaces and as far as I can recall things were pretty cruisy. We hit 10km after three hours and found a friendly house where they had put out a couple of chairs for weary pilgrims. We sat and drank water, fantasising about coffee and food.

Then we hit a bad patch. We were descending through an area of forestry, on a clay road. It had been raining a lot and some heavy machinery with caterpillar treads had been driving up and down.

For a couple of kilometres we waded through mud several centimetres deep.

It was very sticky and stuck to your shoes until you were floating 2-3cm above the surface. (see earlier photo)

We were pleased to leave that behind.

The rain came and went, it was very cold. It was a constant routine of coats on, coats off, overheating, freezing, bla, bla, bla.

We met a few old faithfuls - the Irish coffee addict, Gary Cooper (I think it’s Kevin) and his wife Linda and a couple of others.

By the time we reached Larrabetzu, at about 16km, it was after 2pm and we were starving.

We found the noisiest bar in the town square. It had fabulous paella and we inhaled that with gusto, along with a cafe con leche. 

Beer was tempting, but were feared we had further to go than indicated by the guide book, so we stuck with the coffee.

And so it was. 

We steamed along the path by the highway, making good time, but it was a long way, close to 6km more, we were tired and starting to become a little frayed.

Nevertheless, we got here in the end. I resisted

the urge to violence when told to put my shoes on, but reflected on the history of violence of this region (maybe, after all, it was all caused by unsympathetic hotel staff).

The Basque people live in an area encompassed by France and Spain, but they claim to be neither.

Their language has no Latin roots and is completely separate from French or Spanish.

The separatist movement doesn’t seem to have completely gone away.

I have a good photo that illustrates this, but thanks to the crap wifi I can’t get it to load. I will eventually, but it may be in a future edit tomorrow.

Picasso’s take on Hitler’s interference in Iberian affairs.

Further back, the strife of the civil war led to Picasso’s famous painting Guernica, after Hitler’s army, acting in support of Franco, bombed the city in 1937.

Another act of violence took place on the trail today, when a powerful vine reached out, wrapped itself around Cathie’s foot and did its best to trip her up.

That was the last straw - the last act of violence. I cracked under the pressure and only offer this small tale of tolerance and peace to all vines.

And so - I’ve written all this with very dodgy wifi, so have few photos and other extras to add.

Not only that, but we’re too buggered to walk to either supermarket or restaurant, so have to exist dubiously on beer, whisky, wine, cheese, chocolate and cake. Now we’re (maybe just me) drunk and sugar afflicted.

Tomorrow we can sleep in, as we have only 10km or so to walk - and a rest day to follow.

We can eat all we like in the heady atmosphere of Bilbao.

When we get better internet access - and it may be tomorrow, I’ll add more photos - an album even - as well as the customary Relive video, so this blog may be a little updated - or maybe not.

In the meantime, I call on these hotels that purport to offer services to pilgrims to make their offerings fit for purpose (and don’t complain about my lack of shoes when I’ve just walked for hours in wet shoes).

Finally, if you would like to follow our journey, lease subscribe. It’s free and you’ll get an update when we post - saves us having to put it on Facebook.

A day later: We now have a good wifi signal so I’ve been able to update the photos. Here’s the album for the day: https://photos.app.goo.gl/x3jVF1WABRX123a56

Here’s the Relive app for the day: https://www.relive.cc/view/vYvr3kJQ8xO