29.4km (206.7 km)
Tuesday June 13 2017

Today’s walk began with a climb up a surprisingly long flight of steps followed by a stunning walk along the coastal hillside. From Pobeña a coastal footpath has been built making for easy walking under foot. I walked with a group of fast moving  pilgrims and by 9:30 were at our destination, Castro- Urdiales! After a strange ham sandwich/omelette/ potato pincho it was decided that we should continue to Islares. This was 7.4km further along and meant that tomorrow was cut from 30k to 22.6, which sounded like a good idea. A little further down the road one of the pilgrims asked a local for directions and off everyone headed, blindly following. I then had a dilemma because I had a guide book and a GPS which were both telling me to go a different direction. Eventually three of us went one way and the other eight or so followed the leader…
We arrived in Islares to a boarded up Albergue, with directions to another one some 3/4 km further down the road. Suddenly the short day had turned into a 29k day. We arrived around 12:39, still with plenty of time to keep walking if required but my feet and blisters were screaming stop. It should be pointed out also that the group who took  the directions from the local arrived an hour or so before us…The Albergue is unmanned, there is nowhere to eat , no plug sockets; the guide book that I have says that this Albergue is not viewed favourably by most pilgrims (you don’t say!). I considered walking on but that would be another 17km so I’m staying put! There is a super market 2kms away and the Spanish men (who are all in their 60s, 70s and even one in their 80s) have been taking it in turns to do supermarket runs. I looked in the terrible kitchen to see them creating a feast of calamari, mussels, cheeses and hams plus balsamic vinegar and cornichons plus many bottles of vino tinto. I don’t like to type cast but I imagined this scenario in the UK where the men went off to the local spar…they would not have come back with such a variety of food as to create such sharing platters 😜. Anyway they seem to have bought enough to go round so hopefully no one will starve in the night.

As the Albergue is unmanned it begs the question as to when the bunk bed sheets were last washed…It’s too late to go anywhere now, so really just wishing  it was tomorrow.

SaveSave