Author: Charles Crowley

Alcohol units: 2 (this is from yesterday, wine with lunch)
Miles walked: 11.3
Route changes from 2018: several
Episcopal priests on sabbatical: 1 (and her partner)
Tunnels: 1 (and thank you to St. James)

A little longer day than our usual but blessed by a tunnel through a 650 foot hill that we did not have to climb. It was not on our track but the yellow arrows took us through.

There have been a lot of small changes to the Camino path since 2018 and since our GPS track was recorded. The biggest one was right the beginning. In 2018 we climbed up over 100 steps to a path cut into the side of the cliff lead down to the water. It was originally a right of way for a small train. A spectacular path. See our 2018 for photos. They changed it to a mundane path with no views of the ocean but lots of mud and ups and downs. We are not fans. The best change was the tunnel.

It is fun when you meet people several times like we did with the priest (female) and her partner. They were from Boston. Lots of travel choices from Boston. They came over on Icelandic Airlines and are going back stopping in the Azores. We looked into stopping in the Azores this trip but the details didn’t work out. The advantage is that you can take a 6 hour daytime flight from Boston, stay a day or two in the Azores (which looked really nice), and then a short flight to Madrid. We do not like the overnight flights. She was on sabbatical and they spent time in France and are now walking the whole Camino del Norte (about 500 miles).

We took the blue path. Note: I created all these google map posts before we left so the date inside the map will be wrong because of our dynamic changes.

It swings side to side like a battering ram.

This was in one short tunnel.

Rainy days: 1
Altus rain ponchos spotted: 1 (other than ours)
Moving sidewalks ascended in the rain: 5 (two were out of order) (they were a little slippery, maybe it’s better if you don’t take strollers on them)
Lots of hills: yes, of course
Distance walking above or beside freeways: 2 miles
Distance walked on asphalt: 7.5 miles (out of 7.5 miles)
Times my GPS track follower signaled that I was off the track: at least 5
Times we revisited the bar we liked in 2018: 2

It rained off and on the whole walk. But, being from NM, we have a strong affection for rain so it was fine.

Leaving Portugalete we crossed a huge freeway intersection. We were on pathways above it. It seemed to go on forever.

On the Camino forum people complain a lot about how much road walking there is on the Norte. This is true but we have another viewpoint. When you are walking on asphalt you don’t have to watch your feet every second to avoid falling on the uneven rocks so it is much more relaxing. Actually only a few blocks was actual road, the rest was a bike and walking trail so you didn’t have to worry about cars.

We use an app called Wikiloc which will follow a track you upload. When you get off track by more than 10-20 yards it emits a loud squawk. Handy. But the Camino trail has changed in many small ways since our GPS track was recorded. So we just followed the yellow arrows and had no problem.

We are in that bar right now, drinking decafs and blogging.

We actually stopped in La Arena (the sand) rather than Pobeña. We took the purple path.