Today's quote of the day comes courtesy of Carrie. We had just descended what, at the time, appeared to be the world's steepest hill coming out of the world's densest Basque forest. We have since seen steeper hills, though the dense forest was something special.
Today was pretty wild. We started out the morning in reasonable form. We were the first pilgrims up and out the door at 6:30 this morning. We were a little hesitant about the path starting out, but once we found the first set of yellow arrows, the morning got significantly better. The hills were hard, but not completely unbearable, and we saw lots of farmland along the way, including a set of goats playing in the road between Santiago and Orio. I had to make a pit stop at the albergue in Orio, which looked like a cabin straight out of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. It was phenomenal. As we were leaving, the hospitalera asked where we were walking to. We intended to stay at an albergue in Askizu, and when we mentioned it, she shook her head and insisted that we didn't want to stay there. It is a youth hostel instead of a pilgrim's hostel, and there was no guarantee that the albergue wouldn't be full of tourists before we got there. The hospitalera went on, and her description was enough to make Carrie and I change our plans between the bathroom and the front porch where Annie was waiting with our bags. The hospitalera suggested that we continue on to Zumaia, where a friend of hers oversaw a pilgrims' hostel that would be much more comfortable. It would only add an extra 3.5km to our trip, so we decided it was worth the trip to keep going to Zumaia.
And so we hiked on. And we stopped for lunch. And I ate too much. It quickly turned into an iPod afternoon. The only thing that got me up the next steep hill was a mix of Mika, the Decemberists, Whitney Houston, and Taylor Swift. And then we stopped for a cookie break on a cliff overlooking Zarautz. And more hiking. And then we stopped again for a bathroom break.
That was the stop that killed us.
We could see the steep hill waiting for us. It was sort of awful. Carrie and I popped in our headphones while Annie sprinted off ahead of us, and somehow, we made it to the top. When I got there, a little old man came out of a house in front of me, stopped, stared at my enormous backpack, and said "¿A Santiago?". I said "Si". He genuflected twice and said "Santa Maria". I sort of laughed, but got a little worried for myself if this old man had to cross himself twice at the thought of me walking across his country. He commented on the size of my backpack, and I joked that it was like hauling a child over a mountain. He laughed and said (in Spanish) "That's worse than a child. You can put a child that size down and it will walk over a mountain by itself."
The hills wouldn't stop coming. By this time, it was about 5pm. At this point I realized we had taken too many breaks. We were exhausted and 4km from the albergue at an hour that we would have preferred to be napping or doing laundry. Two hills and one painful hour later, we arrived in Zumaia but still had about 2km to walk to the albergue. When we finally stumbled in the doors, we were spent. I couldn't feel my right leg from the weight of my pack, Carrie's ankle was painfully bruised from her boots, and Annie was just exhausted. We looked like hell and had contracted a serious case of the cranks. As we rang the bell to the albergue, a nice Basque man opened the door and commented on our sad, sad state. We (sort of) laughed, and said we were just looking for a place to stay for the night. He started to explain the provisions available to us for the night. We were going to have very basic accomodations - beds, but sleeping bags would be required, showers and a bathroom, but no kitchen, and we had to be out by 9am. We didn't care at that point and were happy with being shown our bunk beds.
After a shower and some chocolate milk, Carrie and I were a little happier about life. We started some laundry, and in the process, struck up a conversation with the hospitalero. He had lived in Gaithersburg, MD for several months as a Spanish teacher, and we talked at length about life in the DC area. His English was very good, and he was so animated as he spoke about his experiences in the United States. We eventually asked him how he became involved in overseeing the hostel, and he told us the most incredible story.
The refuge we slept in last night is a nunnery. For the last 400 years, an order of cloistered nuns called it home. This March, the remaining nuns in the order were forced to leave. Their numbers had dwindled, and as the youngest nun was already 60 years of age, they found themselves unable to care for each other any longer. The city council voted to preserve and refurbish the building, and as few accomodations exist for the Camino de la Costa, they opted to use it as temporary lodging for this summer's pilgrims. The hospitalero was asked to oversee the albergue after his own experience with hosting pilgrims. After returning from the United States, he purchased farmland and a house with his partner with the intention of spending the majority of their time in the country. Not long after, they parted under bad terms, and the hospitalero was left with a large house and a significant amount of land that soon became meaningless to him. He became very depressed and considered leaving the area to start a new life elsewhere. A friend - incidentally, the woman in Orio who suggested we continue on to Zumaia - told him about the shortage of pilgrims' albergues and encouraged him to become involved with the Camino by opening his home to people passing through the area. He reluctantly agreed, and began hosting groups nightly. They changed his life. Soon he was hosting groups of up to 300 people, cooking for them, offering advice, and enjoying company of the most diverse group of people he'd ever meet.
That story started an incredible evening. We spent the rest of the night around a table with the Basque hospitalero, a (completely attractive!) Catalonian cyclist from outside of Barcelona whom we'd met at the hostel the night before, a delightful Belgian woman, good food, and even better conversation. While flirting shamelessly with the cyclist, I found out that the albergue in Askizu was filled before noon. He had arrived there with the intention of spending the night, but was turned away and kept going toward Zumaia. The albergue in Askizu was 1km off the path of the Camino - not a terribly long distance in the grand scheme of things, but after the day we'd had, an extra 1km out and 1km back probably would have killed us. Thank goodness for small miracles and nice people.
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