Camino del Norte 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.

Today we walked 8.0 miles in 5:00 hours, moving time 3:33. That’s Charlie’s moving time. He walks a little faster than Wynette and periodically stops to wait for her. The Wikiloc app is really good at detecting motion and pauses. Elevation gain of 974 feet and loss of 1411 feet (we started high)

IPA braille encodes the International Phonetic Alphabet so the braille for the same word is different in different languages, note the zones in Spanish, French and Basque. The surprised me when I saw it because I thought of braille as a language. I was also surprised that “/“ was rendered as a single dot. I would think that simplest of braille would be used for a more common symbol.

Hotel breakfasts days in a row: 3 (last one for a while)
Different surfaces walked on: at least 6
High temperature: 74 (It was hot, and tomorrow it will be 76)
The Camino aka Saint James will provide moments: 2 (a fountain with cool water just as we were running out and a lovely cool breeze for the last two miles)
Alcohol units: 2 (Charlie has a weakness for Asturias sidra so he had one in a bar and we bought a 75 cL bottle at the grocery store. Full disclosure: Wynette had some too. Only Charlie likes the sour kind but this one was sweet.)

We like to start out in the morning and walk for 2-4 miles and then stop at a bar and have fried eggs and toast. This requires a middle point with a bar. So far there have been no services for the whole walk so we had breakfast at the hotel. Starting tomorrow we’ll get into our pattern.

The strange meal hours in Spain actually work well for us. We have breakfast around 10 at a bar, lunch around 2-3 when after we get into the town we are staying in and something simple for dinner, like cereal in our room or a salad we buy at a grocery store.

Camino path changes a lot and the walk from San Sebastián to Orio was typical. We started on a road with a sidewalk for a while, then some small suburban streets walking by people’s houses. These were in a semi-rural setting with ocean views but still close to San Sebastián. Then into the woods on a rocky dirt path. The rocky part is good when there is mud but hard to walk on. You have to watch your feet every step. Then some gravel road. Then more rocky paths. Then a nice dirt path that would be terrible in or after a rain. On our last trip, in 2018, it was muddy and we were clinging to the barbed wire fence beside the path. That led to a bloody barbed wire incident recorded in the 2018 blog. The worst section was a mile or more near the end of a “Roman road” which was very steep and very hard to walk on, but again much better than mud after a rain. Finally asphalt into Orio.

”The Camino will provide” is a common saying among pilgrims. Nothing supernatural, just a consequence of keeping positive, being grateful when good things happen and accepting it with equanimity when bad things happen.

The fountain happened at the perfect time. We normally take only two pints of water and rarely use it up but today was hot. I drank a whole pint right at the fountain and we had plenty of water for the last three miles.

Few things are as satisfying as a cool breeze on a hot day. There is a Peanuts cartoon about that. Luckily, near the ocean cool breezes are common.

We had Bridget Jones blanked on the alcohol units until sidra came into the picture.

GR routes (Grande Randonnée) are a network of long-distance hiking trail mostly in France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands. Many Caminos follow GRs. GR-121 goes along Northern Spain and follows the Norte or provides alternative routes, usually closer to the ocean.

Caminos go in only one direction. It is hard to go backwards because you have to look back to see the signs. GRs go in both directions and are signed for both.

One of the thing we like about walking the Camino is that is changes constantly. Here are some of the surfaces we walked on today.

This one is nice to walk on dry but a mess after a rain. It is the site of Charlie’s 2018 barbed wire incident.

This dirt but really mostly rocky trail was the surface for a few miles. Notice the rocks are placed so you can walk on them and avoid the dirt when the rain changes the dirt into mud. Unpleasant to walk on, dangerous too if you are not careful.