So Far

We’ve walked 82 or so miles in five days. The routine is very reminiscent of the bike trip we took in ‘14. We stay in nice but not luxurious places that offer hot showers in tight stalls, often with smallish towels. They have kind, extraordinarily helpful owners who may or may not have much English. Sometimes there’s dinner included (in the way-out-of-the-way places where we began to worry we’d made a wrong turn right before arriving). They often have just one super long pillow for the two of us to share.

Yesterday we walked to Guernica. It was beautiful, full on a Saturday night of families and friends out for dinner, music, dancing. The children were playing and running around. Everywhere we’ve been so far, the Basque language can be heard from every corner. This week marks 87 years since Franco arranged for his friend Hitler to bomb this city (testing out his WWII strategy of decimating civilian populations while helping Franco weaken his Republican enemies). Picasso’s representation of this horrific act is what many of us know of that place, but I’m happy to report that, seen with a longer lens, Franco failed. The Basque culture is strong and vibrant, even (or perhaps especially) in this city that he tried to destroy.

Today we left Guernica for Larrabetzu, a pretty small place with another vibrant town square, full (this afternoon when we passed through) of people having a beer, a conversation, maybe some olives or pinxos (small tapas).

The walking is not unlike the biking: longish distances for our usual routine, beautiful sights that surprise and delight. The Camino is quite manageable, despite our lack of ramped-up training, but we’re exhausted by the end of most days, ready for a meal and an early night.

What’s not the same is the social aspect. On the bikes, the most social experience is a wave. Or honestly, for most cyclists, not even that. But on the Camino, everyone is at the very least waving, saying hello, wishing each other well. “¡Buen Camino!” we say over and over, encouraging other walkers to have a good experience, and they say the same. Everyone’s going in the same direction, if they’re doing the Camino, and so it feels like this enormous group effort toward a goal that is both enigmatic (spiritual by tradition, personal for each individual) and concrete: we go to a place. In our case, we plan to walk the whole Camino and finish in Santiago de Compostela. (More on that another day).

Sometimes you walk with one or more people for an hour or longer. Today we walked with Fernanda, from Mexico City, and Karen, from the UK by way originally of Australia. We met up with their friends Jane (UK) and Richara (Canada, but lately of Malaga) and enjoyed a beer with them at the end of the day.

The experience is as I remember from six years ago, when I walked about 100k of the Camino with my friends Fiona and Carol. It was such a wonderful time and I was so enthusiastic, I called Jerry from the walk and told him, “This is such an amazing experience! We have to come back and walk it together at some point.” Luckily he takes these sorts of statements seriously.

Tomorrow, a nice short walk to Bilbao and then a day off.

S.