Monday, August 6, 2019 Santoña To San Miguel De Meruelo

I was getting a good night’s sleep at the alburgue last night until 6:00 AM rolled around and my sound slumber ended when someone’s cell phone started ringing. The junior division of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Roman Legion was staying in my bunk room and one of these young ladies got a phone call at 6:00 AM this morning. She was in the bathroom when her cell phone started ringing. Her phone rang for five minutes before the young princess who owned the phone answered it, after emerging from the bathroom like Botticelli’s Venus from her scallop shell, primped, put together and ready to either do a photo shoot for Vogue or walk the Camino. The five minutes of phone ringing woke up everyone in the alburgue bunk room, including your humble correspondent. Trying to get back to sleep was futile. So, after a great deal of multilingual grumbling, we all got up, packed our backpacks and gathered in the kitchen for breakfast.

Breakfast was included in the price of the night’s stay at the alburgue in Santoña. For breakfast we had packaged muffins, snack cakes and instant coffee. The muffins and snack cakes weren’t that good but eating everything that is offered to you whenever it is offered to you is one of the immutable rules of the Camino. Another immutable rule of the Camino is, never pass up a chance to use a water closet. Bears 🐻 do indeed shit 💩 in the woods. Pilgrims are not bears and what might seem easy and natural for a bear is not so easy or natural for a Pilgrim. I am not going to elaborate on this point. You’ll just have to take my word on this.

I was out on the Way by 7:00 AM. After walking about ten minutes the Way offered me the opportunity to avoid some road walking and take a detour up a ridge on a goat trail and then down into the next valley to get to Berria, our first town on today’s journey. I took the goat trail less travelled and it made all the difference in the world.

Farmhouse on the ridge above Santoña. Picture taken from the goat 🐐 trail to Berria.

Photo of Berria from the ridge above Santoña.

On the outskirts of Berria I saw this tree with little tufts of cotton sticking out of the top branches.

As I got closer a couple of the tufts of cotton took flight and landed in the field to the right of the tree. These tufts of white cotton were actually white egrets that roost in the tree at night and feed in the fields during the day.

What a wonderful patio to enjoy a morning cup of coffee or an evening meal with friends and family.

This is the long steep hill that the Official Camino climbs at the west end of Berria.

My guide book describes the climb up this hill as “not for the faint of heart.” It recommends an alternate road route to the next town on our journey, Helgueras. I Googled “faint of heart.” It means “lacking the courage or conviction to tackle something difficult or dangerous.” So it appears that my guidebook has thrown down a challenge. If I don’t climb this hill and instead take the alternate road route the guidebook will label me “faint of heart” or, more damning, “lacking the courage to tackle something difficult or dangerous.” I don’t have a problem with the dangerous part. At my age why in the world would I do anything that is dangerous. But if I don’t climb this hill can anyone fairly label me “faint of heart” or “lacking the courage to tackle something difficult?”

Hey Mr. Smarty Pants author of the guidebook. I am walking the Camino Del Norte in the middle of a summer heatwave carrying a twenty pound backpack 🎒. What do you call that, frigging easy. I assume that if you wrote the guidebook you have walked this Camino. Nothing about this journey is easy. So screw you. I am going to take the alternate road route and ignore your attempt to guide book guilt trip me.

This is a Pilgrim statue at the western outskirts of Berria.

This is the price list for an honor system vegetable stand outside Noja.

This honor system vegetable stand has a pretty good selection of really fresh, just out of the garden, vegetables.

This is a church in Castillo. I stopped here and said a prayer for Anna and everyone else on my prayer list.

This is the Way west of Castillo. I felt like I was one of Stephen King’s “Children of the Corn🌽.”

Beautiful narrow bridge on the eastern outskirts of San Miguel de Meruelo.

This is the alburgue where I will be staying tonight.

Alburgue RiCa.

The couple who owns this alburgue is from Hungary 🇭🇺. Her name is Rita and his name is Carlos. Combine the first two letters of their names and you get RiCa. My mother’s name is Rita so I felt like it would be bad Camino Karma if I didn’t stay here. For 35 Euros I get a place to stay, dinner and breakfast. Rita, the alburgue owner, asked me if I have any food allergies or things I won’t eat. In response to this inquiry I said: “Rita, the only thing I won’t eat is your stew. When I was just a lad I swore to God that when I grew up I would never eat any kind of stew cooked by anyone named Rita.” She laughed and said that I was strange, even for an American, but I will be OK for dinner. No stew on the Pilgrim menu tonight.

This is the view from the front porch of the alburgue. Not too shabby.

This is the clean, comfortable, and spacious bunk room at the Alburgue RiCa. I think I am going to like it here.

This is Rita, the owner of Alburgue RiCa.

This is the gourmet meal she fixed us tonight.

First course, a leek and potato soup.

Second course, a Spanish lasagne that covered a full sized dinner plate.

Third course, Cantabrian cake topped with strawberries and ice cream.

This is the group that enjoyed Rita’s dinner tonight at the Alburgue RiCa.

Clockwise we have OK and his daughter Alexandria from Stockholm and Jean and his wife Mimi from Bordeaux.

The cows were walking home to the next door neighbor’s milking shed as we ate dinner.

This is a tomato out of Rita’s garden. It was as big and heavy as a Halloween pumpkin 🎃.

Today I walked 28,000 steps, 19 kilometers, and climbed the equivalent of 39 flights of stairs.

That’s it for today. I hope everyone had a good Monday.

Good evening from the Alburgue RiCa in San Miguel de Meruelo, Spain 🇪🇸.