Here we are! In Santander!
Hard to believe we´ve past the 1000 km mark, and are still going... Since Bilbao, 120 kms behind, much has happened, and a new challenge for us has made the distance between these two cities seem like an entire Camino in itself! We left Bilbao in rain, not just rain, abundant, flooding rain! That could sum up our entire week. It took an entire day of walking to leave the industrial zones around Bilbao, in rain. It started raining so hard once that we took refuge under some poor old little house on a hill. As we stood there, trying to avoid the tennis ball size drops of water ( not quite, but not far) the door of the house opened up, and we were welcomed by an old lady with five little smelly dogs to take a seat for a bit. She was so nice with us, treated us like her sons. She made coffee and we talked for over 1 hour. The rain never did stop, but at least we had met someone very nice along the way on one of our hardest days mentally. These past 5 days we have walked along highways, and major roads... not the most interesting, but rather challenging, as trucks and cars incessantly fly by. But yesterday was our last day of rain, but it made sure to come down on us one last time so we would remember it. We came into a little village on a steep hill, and the rain was coming down so hard pieces of asphalt were flowing down past us, along with sewage and trash. Our feet were in water up past our ankles at times. We couldn´t help but laugh our heads off at the craziness of the situation. Needless to say that my clothes haven´t dried in one week and smell like bitter smelly moldy feet. Today, in Santander, it´s laundry time, hopefully things aren´t too ruined. My shoes are falling apart from being wet so much. My socks show in 8 differents areas. Had it rained one more day, we´d both have pneumonias I think!
Apart from that, all is well, last night we stayed in an awesome hostal in Guemes, just outside of Santander with our 3 friends from Chicago area ( Alex, Nick, Cassie) and a lady from Madrid, another guy from Pozuelo (suburb of Madrid) and three germans ladies. We had a blast eating around a big table while Josh gave us a little guitar concert. We were introduced to Gorujo, a local liquor (50%), which made us forget the cold and rain pretty quickly!
We are going to push to Boo de Pielagos today... Hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for the comments! We´re always happy to give an update, it helps us think back a bit and take into account all the things that have just happened.
David
Hard to believe we´ve past the 1000 km mark, and are still going... Since Bilbao, 120 kms behind, much has happened, and a new challenge for us has made the distance between these two cities seem like an entire Camino in itself! We left Bilbao in rain, not just rain, abundant, flooding rain! That could sum up our entire week. It took an entire day of walking to leave the industrial zones around Bilbao, in rain. It started raining so hard once that we took refuge under some poor old little house on a hill. As we stood there, trying to avoid the tennis ball size drops of water ( not quite, but not far) the door of the house opened up, and we were welcomed by an old lady with five little smelly dogs to take a seat for a bit. She was so nice with us, treated us like her sons. She made coffee and we talked for over 1 hour. The rain never did stop, but at least we had met someone very nice along the way on one of our hardest days mentally. These past 5 days we have walked along highways, and major roads... not the most interesting, but rather challenging, as trucks and cars incessantly fly by. But yesterday was our last day of rain, but it made sure to come down on us one last time so we would remember it. We came into a little village on a steep hill, and the rain was coming down so hard pieces of asphalt were flowing down past us, along with sewage and trash. Our feet were in water up past our ankles at times. We couldn´t help but laugh our heads off at the craziness of the situation. Needless to say that my clothes haven´t dried in one week and smell like bitter smelly moldy feet. Today, in Santander, it´s laundry time, hopefully things aren´t too ruined. My shoes are falling apart from being wet so much. My socks show in 8 differents areas. Had it rained one more day, we´d both have pneumonias I think!
Apart from that, all is well, last night we stayed in an awesome hostal in Guemes, just outside of Santander with our 3 friends from Chicago area ( Alex, Nick, Cassie) and a lady from Madrid, another guy from Pozuelo (suburb of Madrid) and three germans ladies. We had a blast eating around a big table while Josh gave us a little guitar concert. We were introduced to Gorujo, a local liquor (50%), which made us forget the cold and rain pretty quickly!
We are going to push to Boo de Pielagos today... Hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for the comments! We´re always happy to give an update, it helps us think back a bit and take into account all the things that have just happened.
David
