Day: April 13, 2024

We had trouble finding a place to stay here in Zumaia today. We didn’t realize when we were trying to make the reservation that there is a big festival in the town this weekend. But we did find a place to stay in kind of a rooming house way up at the top of the town. Not only is it clean and inexpensive, but we got a great workout walking back and forth, and, it turns out that just a few steps from the front door there are some beautiful views. Photos taken there this afternoon below. Also the young couple who run this place let us use their kitchen to boil some eggs for our trail breakfast tomorrow. They chatted with us while the eggs boiled and were friendly. The young man was so cute. He wanted to demonstrate the Basque language for us so asked his wife to have a short conversation between them. (She was a little more reserved and a little embarrassed, but she did it.) Basque is their first language and then Spanish and then English.

7.1 miles. We skipped some in the middle due to the warm weather. Also probably walked about 2 miles around Zumaia.

Z-towns visited: 2 (Zarautz and Zumaia, a big Z-day for us)
Z-town festivals stumbled upon by chance: 1
Surf towns visited: 1
Proud Basque taxi drivers: 1
American pilgrims talked to: 3
Fish dishes: 1 (sea bass)
Outdoor elevators ridden: 1
Alcohol units: 0 (no sidra today)
Rectilinear churches encountered: 1
Places named after me: 1

Zarautz is the main surfing town along this section of the Norte. We passed 3-4 surf shops and saw a surfing class, along with several dozen surfers. The waves were good today. I’m no expert but I would say 5-6 feet. It was a warm spring Saturday so lots of people were at the beach.

Our previous dentist (DeFazio) married a woman from Zarautz. Now we realize she must be Basque.

It was hard to get a reservation in Zumaia where we are staying tonight and when we got here it seemed pretty busy. The woman who checked us in said it was a big festival. We looked it up and it was the second weekend of the San Telmo festival, the patron saint of fishermen. The place was mobbed, people were wearing blue and had a blue and white scarf on. We were lucky to get into the restaurant we ate at.

Pamplona, a bit south of here, has the festival of San Fermin. They wear red neckerchiefs. And they have the famous running of the bulls. Pamplona is also in Basque country. Here there are no bulls and the neckerchiefs are blue plaid. But lots of people on the street having a good time.

The Basques are proud of their heritage and love to tell you about it. We took a taxi ride with a chatty guy and he told us all about it and the famous Basque people from the area.

We have talked to dozens of pilgrims so far but today was the first Americans. They noticed the Zia symbol on Wynette’s pack and the wife was wearing a t-shirt with a Zia on it. They were from San Jose but had visited NM.

We had sea bass prepared in the local style, very good.

Our room is at the top of the town. There were two long flights of stairs that we carried our packs up. On the way down we noticed the elevator.

We saw some people waiting for it at the top. The elevator came up and the previous group who had gone down were back up and said the door would not open at the bottom. So one guy went down to try again. The door opened for him. We all got in and went down. Darn, the door would not open. So we went back up and then back down. This time it opened! I guess it only opens every other time. Better than never opening at the bottom.

I’m not sure this is a church but it looks like one.