Month: April 2024

Ferry ride attendant

As mentioned in other posts today, we took the ferry (barca) into Santander. There was a boat driver who we never saw and a young woman who did everything else: guided the boat driver as he “parked” the boat next to the landing area, helped people disembark and embark, took tickets, even swept the boat during the ride over. She was so pretty and cheerful.

Some photos of the day

Reflection in a bar window — we’d just gotten off the ferry boat, arriving in Santander
Chicken mole. We had Mexican food for lunch. Wish I’d thought to snap photo before we’d already divided the dish in half to share. The best mole I’ve ever had. You could really taste the chocolate.
There were several bars with “surf” in their name between the beach and the boat dock. We stopped at this one for coffee.
Surf school class on the beach

China store — for food and fruit. We’ve never seen a China store that sells food but this one came in handy because the China stores are about the only ones that are open on Sundays and we needed milk and fruit for tomorrow’s muesli breakfast.

4/21 WynChar Diary

Miles walked: 7.0
Miles on pavement: 1
Miles along headlands with amazing views: 3
Miles along a seemingly endless beach: 3, it was low tide, very pleasant walking
Pilgrims who passed us: ~40
Pilgrims we passed: 0
Locals out for a sunny Sunday walk: >200
Bicycles who passed us: ~10
Times we said what an amazing walk it was: 4 or 5
Boat rides across the ria to Santander: 1

This was a great walking day. Sunny but breezy so it was not hot. We were walking along headlands with 60-70 foot drops down to rocky ocean shore or pristine beaches. We saw a few surfers on the beaches.

So many beaches below us
Pilgrim and locals on the path

Then the trail dropped down to the start of a beach that was 5-6 miles long. We had walked along some of it in 2018 but then it was high tide. This time it was low tide and we walked for three miles along it. Lots of people on the beach enjoying the sunny weather but still there were long stretches with no people. It was breezy and several people were flying kites.

Near the beginning of the endless beach we walked on

At the end we were across the ria from Santander. We stopped for a cup of coffee and then caught the ferry along with several other pilgrims and a number of locals.

About to embark to Santander

Menu

We had lunch at our hotel yesterday, vegetal pizza and chicken enchiladas, both quite good. The couple that owned the place were arty and cool. Yesterday we posted some of the pictures on their walls. The place is full of interesting images and things. The menu has a few interesting details: Philip Seymour Hoffman pizza, Luca Bratzi pizza (it sleeps with the fishes), insomnia pizza ??

Road walking today

Today we walked from the tiny town of San Miguel de Meruelo to another not quite as tiny but still small town of Galizano. Walking on roads the whole way. More up and down than yesterday but not bad. We walked a total of 8.5 miles but that includes walk to restaurant and back after leaving our packs at the hotel. Elevation gain and loss was 600 feet up and 594 down.

The roads mostly didn’t have shoulders but very little traffic. Photos below show typical road and that it was a bright sunny day.

I still couldn’t talk Charlie into wearing his hi-viz wear. I decided to make mine look like a vest in front.

A little more stylish, I thought
Back looks like a stylish scarf but not so useful for increased visibility.

Signage

I’ve seen this exact graphic in several countries. The boy is older, maybe 12-13, is wearing shorts and seems to be carrying a briefcase. The girl is younger, maybe 9-10, has a pony tail with a very large scrunchie-like thing, seems to be wearing a very short skirt and has a purse. They are running because they are excited about getting to school, or maybe about finally getting out of school and going home. Of course, the real reason they are running is to warn drivers that they might just run right in front of your car. A big mix of assumptions and stereotypes. And despise all this deconstruction, a pretty effective warning sign.

Google gets it wrong sometimes

Google said Bar Luis would be right on our path. They’d open at 10:00, not long before we’d get there. Google didn’t show any other bars open. But Bar Luis sounded perfect. We got there and found a sign that said “Closed until May 3.”

Nothing sadder than a closed bar.

But, we didn’t have to eat raisins and walnuts and caffeine pills for breakfast because Google was also wrong about there being another bar — very near this one, and it was open. It was a modern, fancy place. They didn’t hesitate a second when we asked if they’d make us eggs and toast and coffee.

We didn’t specifically ask for butter and jam with our toast and they served the toast with olive oil and tomato sauce. Very common here. That’s how we ate it. Tasty.

Twice so far on this trip we’ve been asked if we wanted large coffees. We said yes this time. They were HUGE. Largest we’d ever seen. Charlie likes the large ones. Next time I’ll stay with “regular”.

More random photos

On the Santoña beach this morning
Yesterday afternoon. Bull fight on TV in bar where we hung out to blog.
The center of Santoña
This is the man who waved me over to the albergue and told me they had my raincoat. We chatted a bit. I told him we were catching a bus to Laredo. He was interested to know a bus was available. Here he is at the bus stop with us. We have been calling him “the wandering minstrel”. He seems to be walking the camino but didn’t have a typical backpack or typical hiking clothes. He told us he bought everything he was wearing (including coat) the day before in a second-hand store in Castro Urdiales. I thought he looked very sharp. I think he is British. He said he’d spent the last 4 months in Morocco.
This is Kelly and Christina, also waiting with us for the bus to Laredo. Kelly is the Episcopal priest we mentioned in previous post. We kept running into them over two days. Christina told us she was a retired church musician. She said it was a stressful and highly underpaid career. Kelly had just wrenched her knee so had to stop walking for a few days.