I got a call yesterday from Springfield that my sister Anna has taken a turn for the worse and the decision has been made to call in hospice. Anna is expected to pass away within the next three to four days. I have made arrangements to fly back to Springfield tomorrow. Anna battled her cancer for over a year with courage, strength and dignity. During this battle she suffered a great deal without complaint. Her battle is almost over and hospice has assured us that her pain and suffering has ended.

This is photo of Anna and Frank at their wedding. What a happy day. Frank has been a tower of strength throughout this whole ordeal. What a good and honorable man.

On this Camino and last year’s Camino I prayed for Anna as hard as I could. She needed a miracle and it didn’t happen. I still believe in miracles and the power of prayer and I ask everyone who reads this blog to remember Anna in your prayers.

Abe and St. Christopher wanted to light one more Camino candle for Anna. We walked over to the Cathedral and they made me take all the change out of my pockets so they could light as many candles as possible for Anna.

Each candle represents a heartfelt prayer that in the end God holds Anna gently in the palms of his hands.

It is with a very heavy heart that I end this year’s blog. I hope you have enjoyed our pilgrimage along the Camino Del Norte.

God Bless You All

Mark, Abe and St. Christopher

I know what you all have been thinking, “Mark really needs a haircut. He is starting to look like a shaggy haired bum.” I can do something about the shaggy hair but the bum part is permanently pressed into my persona. No amount of sprucing up, scrubbing, or dressing up is going to change that. Trying to take the bum out of me would be like putting lipstick on a pig.

I looked at a number of barber shops in Santander this morning trying to find just the right spot to get my locks shorn.

Elite Barbers 💈. That sounds pretty impressive. These barbers are beyond great, they are elite. But they are Traditional Turkish Barbers and I have no idea what that means. Am I going to come out of this place with a traditional Turkish shaved head? Yikes!

This place specializes in hair tattoos.

Those are not hair tattoos. Those are just bad haircuts. The novices at Heck’s Barber College did a better job at a much cheaper price. And besides, I don’t want a hair tatoo! I am not a Marine just out of boot camp. I want a haircut that won’t make me cry 😭 when the barber is done and I get my first glimpse of his or her handiwork.

This barber shop looked interesting.

It takes a great sense of humor to name your barber shop 3 Stooges Barbers. When these three tonsorial specialists picked this name for their barber shop did they really expect a lot of first time customers to walk by and say to themselves, “I need a haircut and I have always wanted to get my hair cut by one of the Three Stooges?” How would you choose which one of the 3 Stooges to cut your hair. Moe had that terrible bowl haircut. You wouldn’t want that. Curly was bald and I would never get my hair cut by a bald barber. That would be like taking your car to a mechanic who rides the bus to work. Larry had that wild Albert Einstein hair that looked like it had not seen a comb or a barber in months. I’ll opt for Albert Einstein if I am having a problem with Relativity, but I don’t think Einstein would be a good choice when I need a haircut. I would be afraid that old Al might hair tatoo E=mc squared onto my head. And then people would stop me on the street and expect me to explain the theory of Relativity, in Spanish. I don’t need to layer that hassle onto what is already a difficult Camino.

The Hair Company seemed like a safe choice.

The hospitalero at the Hostel Royality, Raquel, recommended this place and said that she gets her hair cut there. Raquel seems like she has pretty a pretty mainstream haircut so I am going to give it a shot.

And, it is only a block away from the Hostel so I won’t get lost going there. I called the Hair Company and The Colorado Cowboy 🤠 On The Camino got an appointment at high noon to get a haircut.

This morning I sacked in until 8:00 AM and then went outside for a walk around Santander. I stopped at a cafe and had first breakfast, a tortilla.

Fifteen minutes later I had second breakfast, a chocolate croissant. When I got back to the Hostel Royality they had a breakfast buffet set up so I had third breakfast, fruit and a muffin. I hope I can control my ravenous hunger until lunchtime and avoid eating a fourth breakfast.

It is now high noon and it is time for my haircut. I told the middle aged matron that was going to cut my hair that I wanted to look like this when she was done.

She laughed, pointed at the picture and said: “I’m a barber, not a plastic surgeon. You will need to find Ponce De Leon and his Fountain of Youth if you want to look like this guy.”

This is me in the barber chair.

I tried to get her to take a little more off the front. She crossed herself and looked up to the sky and implored God to shut me up and let her do her job.

This is me, shorn like a sheep and ready to get back on the Camino.

I hate it when a barber puts gel in my hair. It’s too much of a metrosexual look. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

After the haircut I wandered around Santander for a few hours and then settled down at a sidewalk cafe for a leisurely lunch.

First course paella negro.

I love paella.

Second course cod balls.

Third course cheese cake.

This is the Cathedral in Santander. I stopped in and said a prayer for Anna and everyone else on my prayer list.

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

Good evening from Santander, Spain.

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.

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 🇪🇸.

In yesterday’s blog post I told you about my super duper industrial strength earplugs. Well, they met their match and were bested last night at the alburgue in Liendo.

Last night, at about 9:30 PM, I went through my usual bedtime routine. I brushed my teeth, tried to evacuate my bladder so I wouldn’t need to get up half way through the night and stumble to the bathroom to take an old man middle of the night piss, got comfortable in my bunk bed and then jammed my industrial strength earplugs as far down my ear canals as they will go short of using a ramrod. I drifted off to sleep at about 10:30 PM, but shortly thereafter I was jolted awake by snoring so deep and loud that sleep was impossible, even with my super duper earplugs.

I don’t understand snoring. I can see how snoring might have developed as a defense mechanism to keep cavemen and cavewomen safe while they were sleeping by scaring off hungry sabre toothed tigers and other prehistoric predators. But if Darwin was right and evolution is the real deal, shouldn’t we have evolved away from snoring now that we don’t live in caves and there are no sabre toothed tigers?

The snorer in the alburgue last night was a comely young German lass who was sleeping in the bunk bed above me. Her deep and resonate snoring was so loud that it rattled the windows in the alburgue bunk room. Wanda The Window Rattler’s snoring was so deafeningly loud and violent that I am sure it created a seismic shock wave that registered as a Richter scale earthquake at the earthquake monitoring station in Madrid. I swear I could feel Wanda’s snoring move the Earth’s tectonic plates. We are close enough to the ocean that I was worried that Wanda’s snoring might cause a tsunami. I had my super duper industrial strength earplugs in but I could still hear her sonorous snoring and feel the pressure waves of each snore pounding my eardrums. It was like trying to sleep while a hard hatted construction worker was busting up the concrete floor of the alburgue bunk room with a jackhammer.

A couple of fillings in my teeth started to work their way loose. I noticed that a glass of water on my bedside table was doing the jitterbug, as if some Jurassic Park dinosaur was approaching the alburgue. How can anyone in the bunk room sleep when there is a T-Rex 🦖 outside the alburgue getting ready to tear off the roof and eat us all as the main course of his Pilgrim dinner? No more chicken for this Pilgrim T-Rex. I was afraid that Wanda’s snoring would render the alburgue structurally unsound and cause the roof to cave in on me.

Perhaps Wanda’s snoring is a defense mechanism she has developed to ward off the advances of the young buck Pilgrims who are looking for love on the Camino. I can’t imagine that any young Pilgrim Lothario would pursue Wanda for long after he has been subjected to and deafened by her truly epic kettle drum snoring.

Tomorrow I plan to either speed up or slow down to put some distance between me and Wanda The Window Rattler. I am afraid that if I spend one more night in an alburgue bunk room with Wanda I will be driven mad by her snoring and my inability to sleep. I will then be forced to do a Big Chief in the final scene of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and put a pillow over her head and sit on it until her snoring is stilled forever. I would become an instant Camino legend, like Achilles at the Battle of Troy, but I would spend the rest of my miserable life rotting in some dreary Spanish jail.

Nobody got any sleep last night, except for Wanda. So most of the sleep deprived Pilgrims at the alburgue got up at 5:30 AM and were out the door of the alburgue at 6:00.

The first part of our hike today was a climb up this hill.

This is a view of the valley where Liendo sits.

Once I got to the top of the hill the sea views were stunning.

After walking 10 kilometers we arrived at the gate to Laredo.

As I was walking through Loredo I decided it was time for second breakfast.

A chocolate pastry, an egg, ham and Brie pintxo and a glass of Radler. The breakfast of Champions.

As I was walking through Loredo after second breakfast I heard a nicker and a whinny, looked to my left, and much to my surprise and joy I saw Old Bucky. That’s short for buckskin, the color of the coat of this spirited stallion.

Old Bucky heard that the Colorado Cowboy On The Camino 🤠 was coming through Loredo and he wanted to make sure that he was there to give me a hearty and heartfelt Buen Camino.

I got a bunch of nickels and took Old Bucky out for a ride on the beach.

Bucky and I had a great ride. He said that he never gets ridden by a real cowboy that sits tall in the saddle and knows how to handle a spirited stallion like Old Bucky.

Old Bucky proposed that I ride him along the Camino Del Norte to Santiago. He is getting tired of giving little kids rides around Loredo and would love to do the CDN with the Colorado Cowboy 🤠 On The Camino. Then we could both get a Compostela from the Pilgrim Office in Santiago. I figured out how many nickels that would take and told Old Bucky that I couldn’t afford it even if I sold my spare kidney. Old Bucky was crestfallen but he understood the financial reality of the situation and I bade him a fond farewell and resumed my journey.

Cheesy picture on the seaside promenade in Loredo.

This guy is getting dragged along the seaside promenade by five Huskies.

Huskies are sled dogs. This part of Spain hasn’t seen snow since the Ice Age. What in the world is this moron doing with five Huskies in Loredo?

This guy was amazing. He was rollerblading. He would skate forward on one foot with perfect balance and weave in and out of the cones.

Then he would do it skating backwards.

The Official Camino involves a ferry ride from Loredo to Santoña. This is me waiting on the beach for the ferry.

This is the ferry.

This is the Official Camino designation for the ferry.

Me on the ferry.

During the 20 minute ferry ride from Loredo to Santona the first mate walked around selling jars of pickled anchovies and pickled tuna.

I can’t imagine that anyone in their right mind would get on a rust bucket ferry like this and buy a jar of pickled fish? Even for Spain this makes no sense.

I encountered this monument as I stepped off the ferry in Santoña.

I did not know that San Miguel is the official beer of the Camino.

After I got off the ferry I stopped at a bar on the wharf to have a beer. While the ferry was tied up to the wharf the captain and first mate were in the bar having a shot and a beer.

This is the alburgue in Santoña where I will be spending the evening, the La Bilbaina, Alburgue de Perigrinos.

This is the spacious bunk room in the alburgue.

This is my late lunch/early dinner.

A Doner kebab. Delicious.

And for dessert, Oreo ice cream covered with dark chocolate sauce.

Today I walked 21,000 steps, 15 kilometers.

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

Good evening from Santoña, Spain.

Thank God for industrial strength ear plugs. My flophouse room at the Hotel La Ronda was anything but quiet last night. It was Friday night so the local Spaniards started to party at about 10:00 PM and when I woke up this morning at 6:00 AM they were winding down their long night of revelry with much fanfare. On top of the Friday all night fiesta outside my window I also had the guy in the room next to mine snoring with such gusto that if he had been Paul Bunyan, Babe The Blue Ox would have gored him.

Good thing I have a deluxe set of wax earplugs. Before I hit the sack in the evening I jam these babies so far down my ear canals that sometimes I need a corkscrew to fish them out in the morning. Almost any sound, below the decibel level of a jet engine at full throttle, gets blocked out by these earplugs. I couldn’t do the CDN without them.

I was packed and out of the Hotel La Ronda by 6:30 AM and decided to take a detour off the Camino and walk out of town along the harbor side promenade. I was rewarded with these gorgeous views of the sunrise at the harbor in Castro Urdiales.

After I got to the outskirts of town the sun started peeking over the horizon, heralding a bright, sunny and hot day.

The municipal alburgue in Castro Urdiales is on the western edge of town. This alburgue has a very limited number of beds and if you don’t get there early, you wind up sleeping in a tent.

As you can imagine the TripAdvisor reviews on this alburgue have not been five star. One guy compared it to the kennel where he takes his dog when he goes out of town. Now that’s a bit harsh.

This is the steeple of the church in Allendelagua, a little town 5 kilometers west of Castro Urdiales.

I stopped here and said a prayer for Anna and everyone else on my prayer list.

West of Allendelagua the Way hugs the coast. The sea views were unbelievable.

When I got to Cerdigo it was about 9:00 AM, time for a break and second breakfast.

Potato, egg and cheese tortilla, bread and an ice cold Radler. Nine o’clock in the morning sounds like a bit early to start drinking beer, but this is the Camino.

In the town square in Cerdigo I found this two sided drinking fountain with a goat on top. There was an inscription on the other side of this fountain that told the following story, as explained to me by an English speaking Spanish gentleman who was hanging around the town square.

The long time and beloved bachelor mayor of Cerdigo had a pet goat named Ignacio that went everywhere with the mayor. After a long life, in goat years, Ignacio died and the mayor was bereft. The mayor fell ill shortly after he buried his best friend Ignacio. On his death bed, after the parish priest gave him Last Rites, the mayor, just moments before he expired, exclaimed: ” A good goat will do that!”

In his will the mayor left the town enough money to build this fountain and dedicate it to his boon companion Ignacio, with strict instructions that his final words be carved on the base of the fountain.

“A GOOD GOAT WILL DO THAT.”

This is the church in Islares, the next town we walked through on our journey today.

This is the alburgue in Liendo where I am staying tonight.

This is a view of the mountains we had to walk up and around this afternoon to get from Pontarrón to Liendo.

At 7:30 PM the bells 🔔 in the church steeple of the church next to the alburgue started ringing like it was the end of World War I. I went over to see if the church was open for business or was there some crazy Quasimodo in town who just loved to ring the church bells on Saturday night. The church was open and this is what I found when I went inside.

What a beautiful altarpiece. I lit a candle 🕯 and sat down in the front pew and said a prayer for Anna, who is back in the hospital with pneumonia, and all the other people on my prayer list. As I was sitting in the front pew, deep in thought and prayer, people started streaming into the church for the 8:00 PM anticipatory Mass. It was such a serendipitous treat to attend Mass tonight at this beautiful church.

This is St. James the Moorslayer. See the sword in his right hand and the slain Moor on the ground getting trampled by his horse’s hooves.

Today I walked 31,000 steps, 22 kilometers.

That’s it for today.

I hope everyone had a great Saturday. Good evening from Liendo, Spain.

I got a pretty good night’s sleep at the alburgue at Pobeña. People started getting up and packing at 6:00 AM. It is impossible to sleep while people are rustling around trying to find all their stuff with their headlamps shining in rhythmic arcs like searchlights at the premiere of a Hollywood blockbuster in a bygone era. I figured that if I can’t sleep I might as well join the herd and pack up and hit the road. Unfortunately, I had to pack two sets of wet clothes. The last couple of days have been hazy and humid and the clothes I washed in the afternoon haven’t dried. So I have two sets of wet hiking clothes in a plastic shopping bag fermenting like sauerkraut or kimchi in my backpack. As you can probably imagine the smell of these fermenting clothes is not pleasant.

I was out of the alburgue in Pobena at 6:45 AM and almost immediately had to climb up 10 flights of stairs to get to the top of the ridge where the hike west begins. These views of the sunrise were my reward for the early morning stair master workout.

As I walked along the seaside ridge I encountered this sign.

I did not know that the Camino Del Norte has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Based on the sunrise 🌄 I saw this morning I am not surprised by the designation.

As I continued to walk along the edge of the seaside cliff, the sunrise kept getting better and better and better.

I walked by this sign that says I have walked 187 kilometers, with about 15 of those kilometers being by bus 🚌 and train 🚊 in and around Bilbao, and have 627 kilometers to go to get to Santiago. That’s a lot of kilometers to get to Santiago! What was I thinking? This sign also marks the border between the Basque Country and Cantabria.

I have enjoyed my time in the Basque Country. The people were friendly, the food was delicious and the scenery was spectacular.

This is Ontan, about 6 kilometers west of Pobena.

At Otan you can take the regular trail up that hill in the background of the picture or you can walk on this slightly ascending road for a few kilometers and avoid the arduous hill climb.

You guessed it. I took the road. Ever since I started walking in Irun 12 days ago I have felt like poor Sisyphus. Zeus punished Sisyphus for his hubris by condemning him to push a boulder up a steep hill for eternity. Every time Sisyphus gets the boulder to the top of the hill it rolls down to the bottom. Sisyphus curses and then must trudge down to the bottom of the hill and push the boulder back up to the top of the hill, knowing that once he gets to the summit the boulder will say “screw you” and roll back down to the bottom of the hill.

Every time I haul my sad carcass up to the top of a hill I then face a steep downhill hike. At the bottom of the downhill hike I look up and realize that I now have another hill to climb. I am getting weary of this Sisyphean rollercoaster of uphills and downhills!

Usually the graffiti along the Way is of an inspiring nature. I would like to throttle the shit head 💩 who spray painted this bit of wisdom on a roadside wall along the Way.

I am not going nowhere, I am going to Santiago. And I certainly am not going fast. So screw you Mr. Graffiti Man.

When I hit Mioño it was 10:00 AM and time for second breakfast. I walked by this Simpsons themed bar and had to stop in and see if they had cold Radler on tap to slake my thirst and a warm tortilla to temporarily satisfy my ever present and insatiable hunger. I shared a few chuckles with the owner of the bar over the Simpsons theme while he poured me an ice cold Radler and cut me an extra large slice of warm tortilla.

The flowers along the CDN are in full bloom and continue to show off for me.

West of Mioño the trail goes straight up this hill.

As I was contemplating the hike up this hill and then the struggle to walk down the other side, I started bawling like a baby that has lost his pacifier.😭 An old gentleman walked by, told me to dry my tears, and then told me about a secret path that the locals take to get to a tunnel that goes through the hill. I dried my tears and, following this old gentleman’s directions, briskly sauntered up to the tunnel entrance.

Instead of an hour schlep up the hill and then down the hill to get to Castro Urdiales, I had a nice 10 minute amble through this tunnel.

After I emerged from the tunnel I was on the eastern outskirts of Castro Urdiales. As I was walking walking through Castro Urdiales a miracle happened.

I found a laundromat! I proceeded to don my poncho, strip down to my Adam and Eve suit and throw all my clothes in a washing machine at this laundromat. The washing machine on the front window of the laundromat appears to be very excited to have a real Pilgrim grace his establishment.

An old guy was in the laundromat doing his wash and he thought the poncho was funny. He kept chuckling and giving me one and then two thumbs up. Unfortunately, the matron who was in charge of the laundromat was less than enthusiastic about having me hang around in my poncho while I washed and dried all my clothes. She was more than a little relieved when I dressed in my clean clothes, doffed my poncho, packed my backpack and exited her establishment. Not everyone understands the life of a Pilgrim on the Way to Santiago.

This is my lunch in a little cafe in Old Town Castro Urdiales.

Mixed Salad.

Cod topped with Serrano ham and the ever present fries. It would have been nice it they would have removed the head from the fish before they put it on the plate and served it. What am I supposed to do with the head? Eat it?

And chocolate cake with a dollop of whipped cream.

This is my room at a flop house called the La Ronda that I reserved in Castro Urdiales to take a break from the alburgues.

After a quick nap I left the La Ronda to check out Castro Urdiales. As I was exploring Castro Urdiales I ran across this church and stepped inside to light a candle and say a prayer for Anna and everyone else on my prayer list.

This is the harbor at Castro Urdiales.

These kids can’t be much older than twelve and the top of the bridge is at least 50 feet above the water.

This is Old Town Castro Urdiales.

Dinner at a cider house.

I tried the cider and didn’t like it. Too dry for my taste.

Today I walked 30,000 steps, 19 kilometers.

That’s it for today.

Good evening from Castro Urdiales, Spain.

There was a thunderstorm last night and the racket of the thunder and lightning and the rain drumming on the tin roof of the alburgue keep everyone from getting an optimal night’s sleep. We all got up at about 6:30 AM for the usual alburgue breakfast of toast slathered with butter and jam and coffee. Since I don’t drink coffee and they didn’t have orange juice, I washed down my toast with water.

This is a picture of me flanked by my two Camino Angels, Sophie 1 on the left hand side of the picture and Sophie 2 on the right hand side of the picture.

They are both French and they both teach school and they met on their first day waking the CDN from Irun to San Sebastián. They are both so nice and have been so gracious helping me navigate the public transportation system in and around Bilbao.

After our alburgue breakfast Sophie 2 suggested we catch a bus into downtown Bilbao and have a real breakfast. We all agreed that this was a brilliant idea. As we checked out of the alburgue the hospitaleros gave us heartfelt hugs and wished us Buen Camino. We walked a block to the nearest bus stop and within 40 minutes we were in downtown Bilbao at a snug little coffee shop. I immediately ordered a large orange juice and an egg, bacon and cheese breakfast sandwich. Once we had consumed our second breakfast we talked about the best way to get out of Bilbao. Walking 🚶‍♀️ was out of the question, so it was either a bus or a train. The two Sophies decided to take a bus to the municipal albergue in Pobena, about 20 kilometers outside Bilbao, where we were planning to spend the evening. I decided to take the subway from downtown Balboa to Portugalete, about a 10 kilometer train ride and then walk the 10 kilometers from Portugalete to Pobeña.

The subway in Bilbao is so nice and new. Much better than the bus station. I was on high alert the whole time I was in the subway station and on the train from Bilbao to Portugalete. I swore that if anyone even looked like they had a hint of larceny in their heart, I was going to impale them with the sharp end of one of my walking poles. I am happy to report that I was able to navigate the Bilbao subway system without incident and arrived in Portugalete with my person and all my possessions intact.

After walking a kilometer or so I had a choice to make. Take the regular Camino or take the alternate route through the small town of Urioste.

I decided to take the alternate route in the hope that I would be able to find a place to relax and have lunch.

My Father has been asking me about all the anchovies I have been eating. All the fish vendors in this part of Spain sell fresh anchovies.

Because these anchovies are fresh they are not salty like the preserved anchovies we eat in the States.

This is the first bar I encountered in my amble through Urioste. It looked like a nice place and it had a sign that said Pilgrims were welcome.

I got a ham and egg sandwich and a large Radler and had a pleasant lunch at one of the outdoor tables.

After I finished my lunch I went inside to use the bathroom. As I was walking through the bar area to get to the bathroom I realized that the place was filthy. The floor of the bar was littered with discarded bar napkins. There was no TP in the bathroom and I had to beg the bartender for a roll. Disgusting! I don’t know why I didn’t see this mess when I went inside to get my Radler and order my food.

After this harrowing experience I decided I needed dessert to calm me down.

This delicious chocolate treat calmed me down and pepped me up to continue my journey to Pobeña.

This is a billy goat I saw along the Way.

This shot is a nice combination of horses for you horse lovers in the audience and beautiful scenery.

About 1 kilometer before I arrived in Pobeña I walked through La Arena, a surf 🏄 town.

This is an old church on a hill overlooking Pobeña.

This is the dedicated bike/pedestrian path that runs for 20 kilometers from Bilbao to La Arena.

This is the municipal alburgue in Pobeña where I am staying this evening.

A women who is staying at the alburgue tonight is pushing the cart on the right side of the picture 5000 kilometers through France and Spain to raise awareness for people suffering from fibromyalgia.

Pilgrim Dinner tonight at a restaurant a block away from the alburgue.

Mixed salad.

Fried anchovies with the ubiquitous French fries 🍟.

That’s it for today. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thursday.

Good night from Pobeña, Spain.

After a fitful night’s sleep in the stiflingly hot alburgue in Guernica, everyone in the bunk room got up at 6:00 AM and was upstairs in the breakfast room at 6:30 anticipating a hearty breakfast. Instead we got crackers and stale bread with butter and jam and orange juice and cold coffee. I stuffed myself with crackers and stale bread slathered with butter and jam and drank a whole carton of orange juice. I was on the road by 7:30.

For those of you who know your history, in the late 1930’s the German Armed Forces were helping Franco in the Spanish Civil War. On April 26, 1937, the German Air Force decided to bomb Guernica, a reputed opposition stronghold. This aerial attack destroyed the entire city and there were hundreds of civilian casualties.

Pablo Picasso painted a world famous mural to commemorate this atrocity. This isn’t a Picasso but it as close as I could come as I made my way out of Guernica.

Beautiful flower garden in the main plaza in Guernica.

The first order of business after we got out of the city was to hike up to the top of the ridge to the west of Guernica. This is the view from the ridge we had to climb to get out of Guernica.

As I was walking along the top of this ridge I ran into Paolo and he was kind enough to take this picture.

More spectacular scenery.

This is the trail descending from the first ridge.

This is the view as we descended from the first ridge.

What a beautiful sun dappled trail.

Mid morning I stopped to have a snack near a farmhouse. Cujo sneaked up on me and when he got a couple of feet away he started growling. This scared the crap out of me. After he got my attention, he stopped growling and sat there watching me as I quickly finished my snack and skeedadalded out of there.

Spanish farmer hard at work bringing hay up to the high pastures.

The Basque people are very serious about their political freedom and their cultural heritage.

This is a roadside cross in Larrabetzu, a 17 kilometer hike from Guernica. I stopped here and said a prayer for Anna and everyone else on my prayer list.

This is a beautiful stream running through someone’s backyard in Larrabetzu.

This looks like donkey apples. I wonder if the two old timey Pilgrims and their donkey from last year on the Camino Francés are doing the CDN this summer?

This is the bus from Larrabetzu to Bilbao.

It is about a 15 kilometer hike from Larrabetzu to the eastern outskirts of Bilbao, on pavement most of the way. This is not a scenic hike. I was planning on staying in Larrabetzu tonight and walking into Bilbao tomorrow.

As I was taking a break in a park across from the bus stop in Larrabetzu I noticed a couple of French Pilgrims, Sophie and Sophie, waiting at the bus stop. I sauntered over and asked them what they were doing. They said they were going to take this bus into Bilbao and then take another bus to the municipal alburgue on a hill at the western end of Bilbao, right on the Camino. My first thought was that no self respecting Pilgrim would take a bus into and through Bilbao and lose the opportunity to pound their feet to smithereens on the hot pavement while fighting off hordes of thieves who want to steal their backpack. Then God spoke to me! He said that I have been a moron so far on this Pilgrimage and that any even halfway intelligent Pilgrim would get on the bus. I wanted to walk but as you know I always listen to God when he gives me a direct order.

This is your humble correspondent relaxing on the comfortable air conditioned bus from Larrabetzu to Bilboa.

Sophie and Sophie are my Camino Angels and running into them and taking the bus with them to the alburgue in Bilbao was Camino Magic.

This is the view from the hillside municipal alburgue on the western outskirts of Bilboa.

This is the bunk room at the alburgue. Not too bad.

Pictures from the group dinner at the alburgue tonight.

The table setting.

The mixed salad.

The potato tortilla.

The group at dinner. Pilgrims from Spain, France, Italy, and the Czech Republic.

Potato and chorizo soup.

Today I walked 29,000 steps, 18 kilometers.

That’s it for today. I hope everyone had a wonderful Wednesday.

Goodnight from Bilbao, Spain.

Sunrise at the monastery.

We got up at 6:30 AM and had a less than filling breakfast of crackers with butter and jam. I’ll give the monks a break for the skimpy breakfast. They were in the chapel praying vespers. Obviously the monks aren’t big breakfast eaters.

I packed up, visited the chapel where I said a prayer for Anna and everyone else on my prayer list, and was on the trail by 7:30 AM. It was a beautiful cool morning. What magnificent countryside.

After walking about an hour I came across this very long descending staircase. It must have been the equivalent of ten flights of stairs. I have no idea how Pilgrims got down or up this slope before they installed the stairs. All I can say is THANK YOU!!

This is Munitibar, the first town we walked through this morning. The flowers are right out of Fantasia.

There is a very strong Basque separatist movement in this part of Spain. The guidebook warns that today’s walk takes us through the heart of Basque Country. Don’t call anyone around here Spanish or say you are walking through Spain. They are Basque and you are in Basque Country. Get it? Got it? Good!

A nice view of the countryside outside Munitibar.

This farmer is growing tomatoes and peppers in his greenhouse.

And he has the whole operation protected by the meanest looking scarecrow this side of the Wizard of Oz.

So far, open cafes for second breakfast have been almost nonexistent on the CDN. Thank goodness I found an open cafe at about 9:00 AM as I was running out of steam. You can’t march far on a skimpy monk blessed crackers with butter and jam breakfast.

A chocolate donut, an egg and cheese and peppers breakfast sandwich and a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. As you can see this breakfast made me one happy Pilgrim.

This bridge must be five or six hundred years old. As I was walking on a section of the Way about a kilometer before this bridge I ran across Paolo, an Italian guy who works for a graphic design company. We chatted for a few minutes about his job and our Camino experiences. He then wished me Buen Camino and played hare to my tortoise. As I was walking across this ancient stone bridge Paolo, unbeknownst to me, was on the riverbank, downstream of the bridge, and he took these photos of me crossing the bridge. Paolo has a real artistic flair with his IPhone camera. Thank you so much Paolo for taking these beautiful pictures. Another example of Camino Magic and Camino Angels.

Bucolic would be a good word to describe the countryside I am walking through this morning.

I walked through a no horse town that had at least twenty of these crosses lining the one lane country road that passed for their Main Street. I stopped at this roadside cross and said a prayer for Anna and everyone else on my prayer list.

I call this photo “One Jackass Looking At Another.”

I had to climb a steep ridge before I could then descend into Guernica. What great views from the top of the ridge.

As I was descending down the trail to Guernica I came across this sign.

They have been doing a lot of logging in this area and they have been using the Way to haul out the logs. The road was a muddy mess.

This is Guernica.

What a nice treehouse

On the outskirts of Guernica these three young girls were operating a refreshment stand for thirsty Pilgrims.

For a buck you could get a warm Coke, a warm beer, or an ice cold glass of lemonade. As I was trying to figure our what to order and asking questions in my fractured Spanish, the cutie in the middle asked me if I spoke English. She then chatted with me for five minutes in impeccable English. She convinced me to buy two glasses of ice cold lemonade. I gave her two bucks for the lemonade and I tipped her a buck for good measure.

This is home sweet home for tonight.

I had to beg for a lower bunk and they have us stacked like cordwood in our bunk room. Six bunk beds for a total of twelve beds in a 9 by 30 foot room.

A little too cozy for my taste but there are not a lot of choices in Guernica. At least it includes breakfast tomorrow morning. I hope we get more than crackers with butter and jam.

I had dinner off the Pilgrim Menu at the Norte Bar.

First course mixed salad.

Second course steak and spuds.

Dessert was donut holes with ice cream in the middle topped with a drizzle of chocolate sauce.

All for 9 euros. What a great deal. Nutritious and delicious.

I walked 35,000 steps today, 22 kilometers.

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

Good evening from Guernica, Spain.