Day 6. September 19, 2015. Gernika to Lezama. 20 kms

I'm walking backwards to Christmas

Across the Irish Sea

I had planned to meet my Canadian and Spanish friend for breakfast, but they were sound asleep when I tapped on their door at seven o'clock. So I followed a Spanish party out of town, who darted this way and that, trying to find the Camino. This is often a difficult task as the municipalities do not always like their inner streets adorned with yellow arrows. 

Eventually, the way took off into the forest and up the hill, a tortuous and torturous stony path, straight up, onwards and upwards. But it was an honest climb, with no false summits promising relief and offering but a short deceptive descent before the next climb. No, it was straight up, the way I like my scotch, until we reached the plateau. And then a couple of rusty, misshapen steel gates, a farm track across a field, where the sun was already dispersing the mist (above), a bit of bitumen, and a further climb up into logging country, where a couple of times I had to stand off to one side as large trucks, laden with logs and a large crane for loading them onto the back, waddled from side to side as they made their way across the uneven ground.

Then it was downhill, again with fruit trees growing almost wild along the road. The ditch was full of rotten apples, and I thought of the Peter Sellers character, the aristocrat whose noblesse obliged him to give his rotten apples to the poor. I thought of him yesterday, as well, when I met the Irishman. "Paddy, you played a bum note." I have always admired Peter Sellers, ever since listening to the Goon Show every Sunday night on the ABC many years ago.

I pushed myself today, hoping, successfully, to find a place at an alberge with only 20 beds, two-thirds along the way to Bilbao. Otherwise it would have been a 35-kilometre hike, difficult after the long climb, well over a thousand feet.

A loyal reader has asked me about the differences I have noticed between walking in France and walking in Spain. It is early days yet, but food and drink are certainly cheaper here. Beer and coffee is perhaps half the price, and even if you are by yourself, and you have a red with your meal, the bottle is left on the table. Mind you, it is often Pamplona plonk, although last night, because of the presence of our royal guard-cum-hospitalero, we drank a very good bottle of wine. And I well remember, on my last walk in Spain along the Camino Frances in 2003, when I ordered a scotch, the barman would pour it as if it were a glass of wine, talking to his companion as the bottle gurgled and my eyes gaped. I hope that practice hasn't changed. And as a final example, for lunch today I paid 5€ for a salad mixte, a large beer, and an espresso.

The dogs are certainly more friendly in Spain. As a general rule, they don't bark at the strangers who walk by. In France the reverse is true. I think it's because they feel they have to live up to the sign that confronts every visitor: Chien Mechant. And there are other differences too, for another post.