WHEN WALKING

Home to Santiago – Day 51

Pozueta to Bilbao: 25km

The breakfast at Pozueta included cake, which is a fine start to any day.

Setting off at the back of the pack, I look forward to seeing who I might overtake today. I’m pleased to recognise the Australian from Melbourne and walk up to him with a friendly “g’day”. He is, however, Rob from the Netherlands, but I think I got away with it.

And then another new person, French Stéphan. I’ve seen him from a distance before and I want to give him advice on his bags, but I’ll let him work it out himself. He tells me the route’s a bit more busy than he’d expected. I tell him there’s an almosunwalked route just inland, but no one ever takes it. I’m pretty sure Stéphan won’t either.

At the first café stop today, I sit with Alejandro, the chef, and Ivan. I know that I will break their happy Spanish conversation, but both have made the mistake of saying they like to speak English before, so I take full advantage of this.

Poor Alejandro can barely walk with tendinitis, which he’s left untended since day one. I can no longer hold back on giving unsolicited advice and immediately tell him to get a diclofenac patch. Iván nods and will spend the next hour or so trying to find these for him. I will walk on.

In the next town I catch up with Iván again. It’s going to be an Iván day today, which is nice, I haven’t had one before.

Just outside the town, I’m pretty sure I see Maypole dancing across the road and go over to watch out of curiosity. Basque children are showing their Basque country dancing skills with ribbons, sticks and balls, and just like in England and just like everywhere else, half the girls have to dress as boys to make up numbers. And the girls are all smiling with pride, and the boys are all trying to make themselves invisible.

A little stop like this groups a few people together, and so for the final climb over into Bilbao, the group is as follows: me, Ivan, Canadian Grace, and two guys from Taiwan, who she has been walking with and talking with in Mandarin.

For a while I remove Grace from her group, and she talks about the problems of rebuilding a career after emigration, bringing over parents, dealing with guilt, and the joy of escaping it all for a while.

The hill starts to get steeper. A steep hill will usually lead to various walker combinations. I move ahead and speak briefly to one of Grace’s Taiwanese companion, Chen Lan before he discovers with horror that he’s dropped his glasses lower down the hill, I reach Iván, who tells me there will be a vending machine selling cold drinks near the top. It is broken and we look at them sadly.

And finally, at the top we come to some benches with views over the suburbs of Bilbao. This is a gathering place before the descent: Uruguayan Lara, Maria, and Clara are there to greet us (her companions now have names, but as today is their last day of walking, they tell me I needn’t waste my time learning them). At another bench is Roman, a Czech, who slept out in his hammock last night, much to Alberto’s concern. “It was OK” he says, “except for a dog that sat looking at me all night and barked whenever I moved.

We sit on the benches, refill water bottles, and then start with the descent. All the way trying to work out if the view we have down across Bilbao is the exact perfect view we have been told to look out for.

Everyone is impressed by the city’s fancy new albergue and its little cabin beds. This is what you get in the fancy tourist hostels: your own little light, your own plug, your own special drawer in which to put your own special things, two free washing machine and a dryer. We form small groups to share the great luxury of laundering our clothes.

Washing done, I then walk to the Basque pilgrimage church of Santa Begonia with Iván. It is apparently more important to the Basques than the cathedral. This is where all people from the Basque country came for their big pilgrimage day, and when they arrived there were masses every hour from 4 a.m. in the morning to allow everyone to attend.

I get all this information sitting next to Iván in the sacristy, the woman explaining everything to him and occasionally glancing at me as I sit there silently and smile. I will get the details translated later.

I buy some groceries and return to the albergue, and for me that is the end of my sightseeing. Others can go into town. I will stay and enjoy the sight of a big, clean, empty kitchen, and my groceries spread out in front of me.

And then I retire to my little bunk cave, draw the curtains, and keep the light on past ten o’clock.