WHEN WALKING

Home to Santiago – Day 47

San Sebastián to Getaria: 26km

I am standing in the sunshine on the waterfront of San Sebastián, on the phone to pilgrim Claire, now back in Paris, and congratulating myself on a perfectly formed future perfect sentence.

I said I was going to leave at six this morning. I actually left at ten, and by the time I have got all my stuff sorted in town and Claire calls, it is already 11. But I have a bed reserved tonight and have until 8 to check in, so that should give me plenty of time.

Leaving late also means I have the opportunity to say another goodbye to Mickey and to partake of the hostel’s breakfast. It’s eat what you can. They have no idea.

I meet Raoul walking out of San Sebastian. He is very good at improving my Spanish, and also at having a good argument. We did finally reach common ground on “It would be nice if people behaved themselves”. Sadly neither of us notice we have taken the wrong road until seeing a hesitant French pilgrim in front of us, we stop and check.

Now the two of them have gone off together putting their faith in Google maps, while I wander down towards the sea. I just want the views and I want the arrows and I want not to look at my phone.

As I rejoin the main road, I see them again. Raoul is willing to swap out with Jean-Antoine at this point, but we all decide that we want to stop at the little pilgrim stop ahead, run by a local commune. We sit down and drink the mysterious fruit drink, and chat with the beautiful people who run this place.

Yasmin turns up, the cooking German from the Irun kitchen, and we leave together and walk for a while. She’s walking to rethink her career. I am glad she has found a place to do it. At the moment though, she just seems exhausted and when the next big hill comes, we separate naturally.

Walking into Orio, I hear the greetings of “Adiós, adiós!” from some little children, whose heads I just see bouncing up and down above the wall.

After this welcome (or was it a dismissal?) I am not expecting much of this place, but it has a cracker of a church, with a strange aerial walkway all the way around it, a platform built into a rock, the usual ship in the middle, and a path that goes down some stairs at the side. Little things please meAnd all this very handily timed to coincide with a short downpour of rain.

Nice as it is to have company, walking alone has been fun today, and I find myself back to googling questions such as: “Is it possible to live off a diet of nothing but foraged chestnuts and spring water?”

When the rain stops I walk out of town alone, avoiding a crocodile of children on their way back from swimming. And now there they are, walking along the opposite bank of the river, back to their school, and I feel very much as though I’m still a part of their group.

It’s a lovely looking walk according to the map, flat pretty much all the way, following the river bank.

Again and again, throughout the morning, I have overtaken and been overtaken by two women. Each time with an increasingly friendly “hello”.

So leaving Orio, I finally decide it is time for an introduction. I walked over to them, greet them as old friends. They are Lyena and Anna, from the Ukraine, walking from Biarritz to Bilbao. They can varely contain themselves each time they say Bilbao. I must find out what this sounds like in Ukrainian.

Nearly at the top of the hill I sit on a bench because there’s a sign opposite saying ‘Bide On’, and I now know what this means.

A tractor comes by. The man driving smiles. The man standing in the back starts shouting at me. ‘The top of the house opens!’ It takes a while, then I realise he’s talking about the little box next to the pole. I do a thumbs up and go and open the box to show him I was listening. It’s full of odds and sods of medical supplies and a matchbox car.

As I stop at the top of the hill to admire the view down to Zarautz, a pilgrim catches up with me. It’s the Uruguayan girl I saw with a Uruguayan boy yesterday. Apparently they’re not together at all. It is strange how we all presume.

I say, “Hello, Uruguay!” And we introduce ourselves to each other and walk together down into town. She tells me her story of why she’s walking the Camino. It distracts me for a while from the growing need to have a pee. I am reluctant to mention this, but it very much dominates my thoughts during the folliwing events.

As we enter the town itself, I start to make noises about maybe going to a café, but there are no cafés. Just hundreds of people walking around in Basque national costume. And a growing sense of panic.

Then, just as my walking companion is about to walk on ahead, I hear, “Hello, Rachel!”

And there is Alberto with the friends he’s been visiting. I stay for a while and chat, and miraculously everything is fine until I leave them, at which point I run to the beach to find a bar.

But the bar is full of older people, also all wearing Basque national costume, petticoats and berets galore. And of course, in a café full of older people, like myself, everyone is queuing for the loo. I stand.

It is a camino miracle.

When I leave the bar, I have more leisure to walk through the streets, and I’m overwhelmed now by the number of berets and gaiters and funny laced-up shoes. And the town is going mad. It’s more of a bacchanalia than a fiesta. All over the ground, smashed cider bottles. The whole town is roaring drunk, young and old, and all in national costume.

I must find out what it is they’re celebrating, but it doesn’t really seem important. I think they’re just celebrating being Basque.

I struggle through the crowds to get some food for the evening and a bit of cash, and then finally I’m on the road to Getaria, where I will stay for the night.

I’d thought the 8 o’clock checking time would not be a problem, but as I storm along the beautiful coast road, trying so hard not to admire and even harder not to photograph every rock, the peninsular never seems to get closer.

I get there at ten to eight. The man very kindly and very quickly shows me the ropes. And there is Konrad, one of the Germans from Irún, a little sad with an injury. His walking partner, Slovenian Nevis, going on ahead while he recovers. “We walked well together” he says wistfully”.

But tonight there are curtained booths to sleep in and I find a book in English. There is no time for sadness. It is time to nest.