Day 17: Santillana Del Mar to Playa Oyambre (28,7k, in flip flops, on asphalt, while drunk)

We awaken to a less than ideal situation… all our clothes are still wet. Plus, we arrived so late after all the ice cream and beer and failed launderette missions yesterday that we probably didn’t cook the bed bugs for long enough. So what should we do? Pack up all the clean, wet clothes in the dry but probably still infested bags? Or stay at the convent until the clothes dry, and cook the bed bugs some more? It’s a sunny morning but even so the September sun won’t be hot enough for bed bug barbecuing until around eleven. It’s ten past nine. The convent rule says leave at nine.

In the end, we pack up the wet, clean clothes in fresh bin bags, stuff them in separate compartments to the half-cooked stuff (books, shoes, my silk liner, my cap, the bag itself) and walk a couple of hours to a beach, where we spread everything out on a lawn in front of a restaurant terrace of unimpressed-looking Spaniards. Oh well.

For three hours we chill in the sun, swim, chat shit. The boys keep drinking but I do not want a repeat of the previous day’s hangover so stick to orange juice and gazpacho. Around three we decide to walk on, passing some incredible houses overlooking the Cantabrian sea. Huge newbuilds mix with tiny ancient-looking cottages and sprawling fincas surrounded by cypress trees, stone walls and, surprisingly, Brugsmansia bushes.

I’m so sure this Amazonian death medicine can’t be growing in Spain that I keep taking photos of it with PictureThis, turning it over repeatedly in my hand despite my knowledge that merely touching Brugsmansia can cause nausea and hallucinations. But three times the app confirms: what I’m squeezing in my hot little hand is indeed Brugsmansia, also known as Angel’s Trumpet, also known as Datura. It’s what some shamans in South America mix into their ayahuasca brew so tourists will have more colourful experiences and leave more colourful reviews. Unfortunately, it also sometimes kills them.

But also, some people use it with respect and report powerful results. If it grows in Spain, is there an underground Datura ceremony market in Spain? Probably. Just in case, I add Datura Ceremony Facilitator to my list of post-Camino job options. Then I slather my hands in disinfectant.

I’ve been looking for mushrooms on the Camino, but maybe I need to broaden my foraging horizons.

Walking in the afternoon is beautiful. The light is golden and fairytale-esque. We arrive in Comillas, one of Spain’s “pueblos magicos,” with some structures built by Gaudi. It’s beautiful, but as it’s the last night without rain forecast for the foreseeable future, we really want to sleep outside.

So we keep walking, even though it’s already half past seven. Surely something will come up soon? We check a satellite map of the area and confirm several wooded areas coming up.

Sadly, once we reach them, they are all behind PROHIBIDO EL PASO signs. All private. Guard dogs and fences. We keep walking as the sun sets. The boys are getting pretty drunk and are therefore chilling, but I’m definitely starting to get stressed. Setting up camp in complete darkness doesn’t sound very appealing. Or, for that matter, not finding anywhere to set up camp at all.

We pass some clusters of trees next to the road. Decent in an emergency, but then again, we’re only twenty minutes walk from Playa Oyambre, which the older of the Germans, a gregarious software developer-cum-wilderness skills instructor (defo reassuring) who’s walking his fifth Camino in Crocs, remembers as particularly beautiful. So we walk on. It gets darker and darker. Finally we reach it, but there are huge tidal pools between us and the one strip of grass we can see that would be safe from tides we know nothing about.

So we walk on. It’s almost completely dark now. I’m starting to get ready to sleep next to the road, under an oak tree at best, when finally a sandy path appears on the right. We head down, jubilant to finally be walking towards guaranteed ocean.

Soon, the sand turns into gravel. Then the gravel turns into rocks. The rocks turn into rocks and mud. The path is now a raised stone walkway through a tidal pool, and around us we hear the constant clak-clak-clak of a billion tiny crabs coming out of their holes for – I assume – their evening meal? Party? Midnight rain dance?

Me and the younger German – a beer-loving tattooist who started out in hiking boots but who has, today, along with me swapped them out for sandals – starts struggling with the stones. Me and Crocs Dundee walk ahead to check that the path leads somewhere.

It does. To a wide gap between us and what looked like a continuation of the path, on the other side of a wide, dark, crab-filled stream.

Well. No turning back. Crocs Dundee walks first, feeling his way through the stream with his bamboo walking stick. Though he pretends to be “bitten” by a crab, the mission generally turns out successful, and me and Beer-Loving Tattooist (BLT) follow. I lose a shoe, but find it again. No, I’m okay. Thanks for asking.

Only once we pass (once again, jubilant) do we see the sign on the other side. PROHIBIDO EL PASO. RIESGO DE SUCCIÓN. I’m two beers and plenty of adrenaline deep, so shrug it off, but today I’m pretty sure this means… quicksand?

No matter. We walk on. We’re at the strip of grass! Safety! Mais non. The strip of grass turns out to be a fenced fucking golf course.

Land-owning motherfuckers. I want to stop and camp by the crab swamp, but the guys want to climb the fence. So we do. Outside your comfort zone is where the magic happens, I repeat to myself as I half-run across the golf course, all the while preparing my defense speech for when the inevitable search light stops on my face and we are threatened with immediate deportation.

This does not happen. What happens is we reach the beach, the long, sandy, wonderful beach, and sleep beneath the stars to the sound of waves. It’s not even cold, thanks to my three layers, silk liner and new sleeping bag from Decathlon. Even the thermal blanket remains unused at my feet through the night. I wake up from the sun rising. No bed bug bites. Period calmed down.

Onwards and upwards.

#beachlife #soulsearching #camping #searchingforahome #bleed #Datura #CaminodelNorte #ayahuasca #magicmushrooms #travel #bedbugs #Cantabria #travelfriends #hiking #CaminodeSantiago