Camino del Norte, day two

San Sebastian to Zarausta, Saturday May 6

We climbed from San Sebastian as the sun rose.

Today was a little easier than yesterday, but not that much easier. Our guidebook described it as level of difficulty two, on a scale of one to three. Yesterday was three and so are the next two days.

The trouble is, we haven’t shaken off the effects of the flight from New Zealand a week ago.

We landed in Paris on Monday morning after nearly 36 hours of travel, more than 25 hours of it in the air and the rest mooching around airports.

Cathie developed a cough, with sneezing and headaches, but started feeling a little better during day one.

I started out fine yesterday, but started to feel the onset towards the end of the day and today, I felt rotten too.

We soldiered on, the pair of us, feeling like characters from that maligned TV ad:

We’d walked most of the way through San Sebastian yesterday, so today we were straight into it, climbing up civilised streets and staircases and ascending quite quickly, as the city revealed itself behind us.

As a conversation starter, we’ve sewed New Zealand flags on to our packs and it didn’t take long before a briskly-striding woman pulled up behind us, announcing herself as a Kiwi Australian. She was born in Wellington, but has lived for a long time in Sydney.

Eager to please, she took the photo at the top of this story.

Very soon after, a couple of runners steamed by. “Kia ora”, one called out. For those not in the know, that’s a quintessential Kiwi greeting.

According to our guide book, 75 percent of today’s 21.5km journey was on paved surfaces. It didn’t really feel like that was the right proportion. Maybe the paved sections went more quickly, but we suffered a bit on the unpaved.

Cathie on the historic section of today’s walk.

It’s interesting that part of today’s walk was on land gifted by the landowner in 1178AD, so pilgrims have been walking this same path for more than 800 years.

It seems there’s been a lot of work done to make it weatherproof.

Tricky terrain for old knees and ankles.

That didn’t make it any easier though.

Already we’ve started meeting people we met the day before, but there are also a lot of new people about, as San Sebastian is the start point for many pilgrims.

We met a woman from Australia. Actually, she’s from Hungary. Our NZ flags caused her to strike up a conversation. She’s been in Australia for five years, but is busting to come to NZ.

After crossing paths with her two or three times, we had a coffee at a very unlikely spot.

A religious commune called the Tribes of Israel had put up a little tent by the side of the road, so we sat down with our Hungarian acquaintance for a chat. She’s met another Hungarian woman and they were walking together for a while. We gave her a card and told her to look us up if she ever gets to Nelson, New Zealand. 

That’s not as strange a thing as you may think. The Camino gives you liberty to hand out friendship at will and it’s a fine thing.

We keep seeing Dave, from Canada. He wears a distinctive red and white cap and smiles a lot.

Today he teamed up with Laurence, a fellow Quebecois. We kept seeing Dave yesterday, so we felt an affinity. He’d suffered too.

They’d never met before, but it turned out they lived in close neighbourhoods in Quebec.

We had lunch with them at the lovely seaside village of Orio. We just love those pintxos. 

I had two, one with omelette, one with tuna and a beer, Cathie had a tortilla (Spanish omelette), which is always served with a lump of bread and a Cortada, which is a wonderful coffee, a bit like a flat white but with far less milk. The entire repast checked in at €10.50.

One thing that all these people had in common was that they didn’t quite know where they were sleeping tonight.

Zarautz is full, as was San Sebastian last night.

With record numbers on the Camino it’s a real problem.

We’re in a very privileged category, having booked into small bed and breakfast hotels through a Spanish company (see online pilgrim.es). We’re booked all the way to Santiago de Compostela and part of this service is to have our bags carried with Correos, the Spanish postal service.

Enough of being smug.

After our lovely lunch at Orio, we had an uphill trudge of nearly 3km, before descending into Zarautz - at least we were on smooth paved roads.

Once more, our hotel was at the far side of town. At least that means we’re off to a good start tomorrow.

Since it’s Saturday here in Spain and tomorrow apparently is Sunday, breakfast was announced at 8am. However, by adopting a suitable hangdog expression, they agreed to open up for us at 7am. (They did that today too, redeeming themselves a trifle).

Our hotel is great. It’s an outpost of Txiki Polit, where we checked in. We’re actually at Musika Plaza, just across the square.

We’re in a great part of town, with bars and restaurants everywhere. We overlook a busy square and it looks as if there’s some big football game tonight. 

After checking in and feeling exhausted, we’ve done some washing and had a shower. Cathie has had a snooze. I found a supermarket and bought some essentials - a beer called le Rubia, a couple of Amstel Tostadas and 1.5litres of water - all for the outrageous price of €3.

Sadly, our hotel room only runs to one glass that we can find - difficult to serve two beers and a whisky.

I’ve been quite risqué and swigged my whisky shot from the bottle - I feel like I’m in a western movie and at any moment someone will put a bullet through it.

That’s the end of today’s story. I just want to let my constant reader from Ruby Bay, Nelson, who always tells me not to dribble on, that he can stop reading, while I drift off into the realms of fantasy.

This is my third Camino. I’ve found that my brain starts emptying out in unexpected ways as I trudge along.

Today has been no exception.

Back at home in NZ, we drive a Honda car. I noticed in Paris that I never saw any - not that I was looking.

Now we’re on Spain, I’m more intent - where are all the Hondas?

Back in the 1960s, I had a few motorbikes. 

First it was a Czechoslovakian Jawa. It was a sturdy bike of 150cc or so. Back then, most bikes tended to be larger. At one stage I had a single cylinder 500cc Matchless. To start it, you had to bring all your weight to bear and if it kicked back, it could either break your ankle or throw you over the roof of the nearest building.

I moved on to cars, most notably my father’s Volks

wagen beetle. I sold that to put a deposit on my first house (house price $10,500 and deposit $1500) and for $200 bought a brand new 125cc Suzuki motorbike.

My friend Keith had a small Honda in the late 1960s. We used to whizz around Auckland and occasionally make the trip all the way to Whangarei, where my parents lived.

The little Hondas of the 1960s were an icon. The Beach Boys tried to make them famous with their incredibly trite song of praise -

Motor bikes were one thing. I was surprised when they stepped up to cars.

And now for the first time, we own one, and a fine car it is.

But not in France or Spain.

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The next day

I was rabbiting on so much, I forgot a couple of things.

Firstly, those little Hondas made so much noise that there were smutty scatalogical schoolboy jokes. I remember the punchline of one: “Absinthe makes the fart go Honda”.

What was the joke? It’s long since subsided into the slough of forgotten jokes. If you know it, let me know.

I also forgot the Relive video: https://www.relive.cc/view/vwq1RWAW8Lv

Finally, the day’s photo album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/FoLNfTVdTYVyrXzV9