Tuesday, August 5, 2019 San Miguel De Meruelo To Santander

Word of the Day – Dromomania

“An uncontrollable urge to walk or wander.”

You can call me Dromo.

This morning at the Alburgue RiCa we had the typical alburgue breakfast, toast smothered in margarine and jam. Nice, but definitely not enough fuel to stoke a Pilgrim’s boiler for a long morning march.

The breakfast was served at a civilized hour, 7:00 AM, so I didn’t hit the Way until 8:00. This glorious sunrise more than made up for the less than scrumptious breakfast.

Do you see the church steeple in the middle of the above picture? The church bells 🔔 bade us farewell as we left the alburgue. As the church bells were ringing in the start of a new day, I said a prayer for Anna and everyone else on my prayer 🙏 list.

I know I put a lot of sunrise pictures in this blog post but the sunrise this morning was truly glorious.

A few kilometers from the Alburgue RiCa we walked past this pasture where the cows were enjoying their breakfast. They were all wearing cowbells. As they moved their heads from side to side to find the most tender and succulent summer grass their bells wished us a sonorous Buen Camino.

I stopped for second breakfast at Güemes. A young man from Lithuania invited me to join him at his table. His name is Rokas. He is 21 and he speaks flawless English, in part, because he spent a year studying abroad in Australia and another year in Canada.

This is me and Rokas in Santander, my final destination for the day. Rokas is going to walk another 10 kilometers so he can get out of the big city.

After second breakfast in Güemes Rokas invited me to walk with him and I gladly accepted. Rokas usually walks at least 30 kilometers a day and had to slow down to half speed so I could keep up with him.

We did about 4 kilometers of road walking from Güemes to Galizano where the Camino turned away from the road and onto a narrow path along a series of sea cliffs.

Can you see the surfers on the beach in the foreground of this picture?

The beaches around Santander are very popular with European surfers. Almost everyone in Europe gets August off for their Summer holiday. A lot of young Euros come to the Santander area to go to surf schools.

The surf students stay in hostels a couple of miles from the beach. Each morning the instructors load up the surf boards and drive their surf students to the beach. What a life! I want to be a Euro.

More beautiful coastal pictures.

In the distance we got our first glimpse of the magical city of Santander.

A few kilometers outside Somo, the last city before we get to Santander, the Camino took a hard right and we found ourselves walking on the beach.

You might be saying to yourself, “What fun to walk for three Camino kilometers along a lovely clothing optional beach where all the toned and tanned Euros are cavorting and strutting their stuff.” Are you kidding me?? It is noon and the sun is frying my pea brain to mush and I am wearing a heavy backpack sinking in the soft sand up to my ankles. Fun this was not.

After we exited the beach we had to take off our shoes and socks and empty ten pounds of sand out of each shoe. What a nightmare! Thank goodness we were no more than a few blocks from the ferry at Somo. You heard me right. There is a ferry at Somo that takes you right to the heart of Santander. So, you can walk an extra 20 kilometers to get to Santander from Somo or you can spend two bucks and take the ferry. Rokas thought it was cheating to take the ferry. I convinced him the ferry was part of the Official Camino route and he reluctantly agreed to join my nefarious scheme to shave 20 kilometers off the CDN. I am actually getting pretty good at finding different modes of transportation, other than walking, to move my ancient carcass along the Camino Del Norte.

This is the garbage scow of a ferry that transported us from Somo to Santander.

This is me on the ferry.

This is a view of Santander from the ferry.

I will be taking a rest day in Santander tomorrow. I am utterly exhausted from the ferry ride today and need a day to recover. I am staying at the Hostel Royality. It sounds pretentious but it’s not. It is clean and the staff is very nice and helpful. Although I am getting tired of the hospitalero, Raquel, making fun of my lame attempts to speak Spanish. She threatened to speak only Spanish to me so I can practice my Spanish. I begged her not to and she relented and agreed to speak to me in half English and half Spanish, the dreaded Spanglish. I should get a discount at the Hostel Royalty for being the butt of the staff’s jokes.

This is the common room at the Hostel Royalty.

Very nice 👍. I communicate a lot in Spain by either giving one or two thumbs up 👍 or one or two thumbs down 👎. It’s crude but it’s effective.

This is the view from one of the balconies in the common area.

This is my lower bunk bed at the Hostel Royalty.

Yes sports fans, I have a top and bottom sheet, a pillowcase and a duvet. To celebrate my good fortune I am going out for a drink and dinner at one of the many Michelin starred restaurants in Santander. Yea right! The way I am dressed I have a hard time talking my way into a Kebab shop.

I walked around Santander until I found a little tavern where I had a beer and a couple of pintxos for dinner.

The pintxo on the right is a chicken cutlet. I think the one on the left is a blood sausage. The bartender wouldn’t tell me what it was but he said I had to try it. Whatever it was, I liked it.

Today I walked 28,000 steps, 20 kilometers, and I climbed the equivalent of 25 flights of stairs.

That’s it for today. I hope everyone had a great Tuesday.

Good evening from Santander, Spain.