Day 16: Mar – Santillana Del Mar (12,7k)

Outdoor premiere goes both very well and very bad.

Well because it’s fun and exciting and the €6,99 thermal blanket that Decathlon man suggested as a complement to the €34,99, 10°C sleeping bag (instead of the €64,99, 5°C sleeping bag) saves me at 5am shivers. As for my period, I wake up at 3am needing a change of equipment, so head out into the dark, empty my cup underneath a bush, pop it back in, wipe my hands clean on the dewy grass, and go back to bed. Easy, peasy. Gaia offering and pikachu maintenance in one. Boom.

Bad because in the morning one of the Germans announces he has BED BUGS. Not what I had hoped for from my first night as a wild woman.

I have no bites but both the others do so we decide to walk straight to a launderette. “Straight” takes three and a half hours and includes six ice creams, nine beers and one Coca-Cola. Sadly, no food. Fuck you, roadside restaurant who refused to serve anything other than the €18,99 Menu del Día. Not even bread!?

It’s okay. I’ve moved on. Deep breath. Om Namah Shivaya. But also, fuck you. We all have epic hangovers, and I’m starting to realise I’m basically a different person on my period. A hungry person. Hungry and impatient.

After all this, the launderette turns out to be closed due to an “electricity fault,” so we end up at the convent in Santillana del Mar after all. It’s been a long fucking day, so we give up all pretenses at sticking to budget and buy everything: beds, dinner, breakfast, washer, another washer, dryer. We nuke our clothes with hot water and tie everything we can’t wash in black plastic bags and leave them in the sun. According to the internet, this cooks the bed bugs alive. Yum. I do some writing, call my mum and take an epic shower. The boys continue partying after dinner but I’m in bed by nine thirty, warm and dry, and full of Ibuprofen. Perfect.

#soulsearching #PMSBlues #bleed #CaminodelNorte #travel #hanger #wilderness #bedbugs #Cantabria #hiking #CaminodeSantiago