Day 10. September 23, 2015. Castra Urdiales to Laredo. 27 kms

O humble snail, thy home upon thy back,

Why wendest thou thy way across this track,

When cometh from afar the fearful sound

Of pilgrim's feet upon this sluggish ground?

I do but fear thy destiny and his,

Will meet in one horrendous squiz.

And he'll walk on, oblivious to thy fate,

While thou remainest, slimy on the slate.

I was moved to read that some Americans were planning to wear an extra shell in memory of Denise Thiem, a pilgrim who was murdered on the Camino Frances in the spring. I suspect that this will become a much wider movement.

My face clouded over as I poked it out the door of the alberge. It was raining. No longer was I of sunny disposition. Wrestling with my poncho, I  stormed out in a foul mood.

Even so, it was good to leave the alberge: just too many people crammed into one room. There was nowhere to put your gear, and always the risk of something vital from from your pack getting mixed up with someone else's. As I left, I noticed a cockroach crawling defiantly across the kitchen floor.

I walked up the hill, and then down to Andelagua, where I was hoping a bar night have been open for breakfast, but it wasn't. Then it was down minor roads to the coast, and along a path where the view should have been spectacular, but the sea and the mist were one. The rain fell steadily as I walked, soaking my Tilley hat, running down my legs into my boots, and whipping under my poncho.

I always dither over whether to bring a rain jacket and rain pants or a poncho. It doesn't matter that much; you are going to get wet anyway, either from rain without or sweat within. At least with a poncho you don't get cold and clammy, just wet. But it's a bit difficult to don; it takes a strong upward swing to fling it over your backpack. And then you look like the hunchback of Notre Dame.

The coastal path ended at Islares, and there I found a cafe. After that, it was either a long hike up the mountain in the rain, or a short cut along the road. Guess which one I took. Even so it was still a long climb as the road wound its way around the hill. I walked with Susanne, a Quebecoise from Montreal. Our political views were remarkably similar, and we discussed the differences between great statesmen (Pierre Trudeau and Rene Levesque) and expedient politicians (Steven Harper and Tom Mulcair). We agreed with Jean Chrétien that Harper had done more harm to the country than any other prime minister.

I was planning to finish early on this miserable day, but when we arrived at Liende three hours before the opening of the alberge, I was too wet and cold to sit around and wait, so I kept on walking.

As I walked in to the streets of Laredo, there were no cowboys. No white linen either, not on my bed anyway, for once again I will spend the night in my sleeping bag, at an alberge, this time run by nuns.

I do feel sorry for dogs with no redeeming feature. One just walked into the bar where I am writing this. He is a yap dog, a kind of cross between a Pom and a Peke, and he may have some cat in him. He has a skirt and a beard, I kid you not, a real bushy growth out of his neck, and a upward protruding lower tooth. He would have won a Dog's Ugliness Contest. He yapped all the time his master sat at the bar, and everyone was thinking, Get that bloody dog out of here.

I'm sorry the picture's out of focus, but I had to be quick and discreet. I mean, why would I want to take a photo of this dog? But I like the dogs in Spain. They are all shapes and sizes and colours, of indeterminate ancestry, often with a spot where it shouldn't be, or a limp or a lurch or a lean or a leer. They are the hoi polloi of dogs, and would not fit in on Dallas Road or Wellington Crescent.