Day 12: Santoña – Guemes (26,4k)

Day 12 starts out HARD. I leave the hostel in the charming anchovy factory neighbourhood of Santoña with Gertrude, then head towards the epic sandy beach of Berria on my own. I’ve got to cover 25k today so I walk fast. After the beach the trail goes up into the mountain, and it’s easily the most difficult terrain on the Norte so far. It’s basically mountain climbing, except with sand covering half the rock. The trail is narrow and contorted, with occasional sudden drops and hidden holes along the sides. I try to grab a bush for support, but quickly regret this; they’ve all got thorns. I worry for the many 70+ pilgrims I’ve seen tap-tapping their way along the road with their poles. No way would my mum (fit, but 71) be okay on this trail.

The trail finally crests, revealing yet another, yet more epic sandy beach: that of Noja. It’s windy and bleak and wonderful, but after what feels like 4k of barefoot walking on the hard-packed sand, my legs are beat, and my brain feels like it’s been blown away by the wind. I find a cafe and just about manage to get the words out for what I want more than anything in the world: a tortilla with bread, and a cup of chocolate espeso, that is to say, thickkkk. The kind where you put a spoon in it and it stands straight up. They have it! €3,60 total. Bar Los Peñones. This is how Spanish breakfast should be.

Noja is really nice and for a while afterwards the path winds through cute little houses with modest vegetable gardens, grandmothers selling peppers, corn, green beans. But soon this turns into a weird sort of Stepford Wives version of cattle land – lots of big yards with cows and scary dogs, yet everything looks kind of the same. Manicured lawns, model houses.

It goes on forever. And all of it is paved. My legs ache, ache, ache.

But finally, around four, I arrive at Albergue La Cabaña del Abuelo Peuto, which Athletic Pixie has said is “something else” and which, according to the Buen Camino app, is “probably the most extraordinary hotel in all the Northern route.” AP, me and GIB have agreed to meet here, but I see neither of them when I arrive. There is no reception, really. Just people walking around with beatific expressions on their faces, and posters with inspirational quotes.

I am so tired. Finally, me and a German pilgrim I’ve never seen before find someone somewhat in charge in one of the kitchens, and soon we are invited to write down our names, emails, nationalities, jobs, ages and passport numbers in a large logbook. Yes, that’s a lot of info. No, not Camino standard. After this, we’re shown to our rooms by an English-speaking woman a few years older than me. “The father’s talk is at six today,” she tells me solemnly, as if I am fully initiated into what this means. Am I in a cult? If so it seems like a pretty nice cult. Still, I’m glad to spot two pilgrims I know on my way to the dorm. At least if we’re getting brainwashed, we’re getting brainwashed together.

Well, if it is indeed a sect, it turns out to be a cool one. The albergue is the house where Father Ernesto was born, 85 years ago, before he went on to have one cool life. Working as a shepherd, priest and miner, he then travelled all over the world in a Landrover that’s now got 700,000 miles on it. Here are some pics of his life:

As he knows he will soon die, he’s made the volunteers promise to keep the place running, and if they can’t, to sell it and donate the money to “a social project that needs it.”

We learn all this during a meeting in a big hall. I feel like I’m at camp. The owners are funny and charming. They say normally this is all much later but today the local church is visited by Cantabria’s finest choir so everything is a bit different. Concert at 20:15. Let’s eat.

We dine on pumpkin soup and rice with meat and vegetables. I sit next to a hyper polite Argentinian who speaks four different languages perfectly, while at the table. I ask him how many he speaks in life. “None,” he replies with a cheeky smile. “Properly.”

After dinner, it’s time for church. People put on down jackets and gloves and buffs. I pop the other half of the edible and jump into the back of a van with a bunch of strangers. We are taken to church, where a choir of very dignified-looking elders sing dramatic choral and opera versions of songs about big things. Feelings are felt.

I walk back in the moonlight with a girl from Spain and a girl from Italy. Stars are out. Life is good.

According to some numerology from Gertrude’s shamanic sect / totally reasonable community (haven’t decided yet), the number thirteen is important. It’s the death of something. An ending. Which is good, because I thought I’d do a review after the first week of the Camino, but I didn’t have time, so now I’ll do it tomorrow instead, at the end of the Camino’s first Austro-shamanic chunk. Apparently you’re meant to give away what no longer serves you. I’m giving away that not-welcome nonsense (experiment yielded very good results), and my tiny ridiculous cycling shorts.

Farewell, bum-huggers

#FatherErnesto #soulsearching #endings #CaminodelNorte #cults #travel #Cantabria #beginnings #hiking #CaminodeSantiago #unwelcomeness

Day 11: Islares – Santoña (secret number of not-enough k)

After Ralph joins me on the cape we go to a surf shack overlooking the water. We drink beer and milkshakes and I eat a ribeye burger with goats cheese, caramelised onions and rocket. Yes, while stoned. Yes, after nearly two weeks of alternating between bread-sardines-tomato and the albergues’ pilgrim’s menus, which, while always (okay, usually) well-intended, are far from dependable in their gastronomic ambition.

Yes, it’s like a small, culinary orgasm.

We’re both pretty stoned so the conversation isn’t too serious but we still get through a bit of past relationships and resulting patterns. At times it definitely feels like a date, even though we’ve talked about it and agreed to just stay friends for the time being.

So after the surf shack chucks us out (22:15! Are they also pilgrims!?) we walk back to the camping and go to sleep in our separate beds in our private cabin. At two in the morning we wake up from the rains finally beginning. I take in the laundry and lie awake for a while, listening to the smattering of raindrops and smelling the freshness return to the earth. Yesterday on the beach in Castro a very tanned lady who watched my stuff as I swam said Cantabria hasn’t seen rain for three months. There’s a hose pipe ban and crops are failing, not only in Spanish Mindhunter’s summer cabin down by the N-634.

Usually, when my 7:30 alarm goes off I am either already up and packed or chilling in bed watching everyone else get up and packed. Not on Day 11. On Day 11 it feels like I must have made a mistake, it must be 4:30! It is not. I walk to the camping bathroom, and when I come back, the cabin is locked and Ralph is gone. I wait in the chilly morning air for about ten minutes, until he comes back and says he’s going for a walk to the water. There is a strange vibe. Is he pissed we’re just friends? Or does he just feel a bit rejected? Early morning grumpiness?

Either way, we agree to look at a plan for the day when he comes back. Maybe get some breakfast at the Camping Restaurant, which opens at nine. It’s only 15k to Laredo, where there’s a big sandy beach, and if that albergue is full, another 6k to Santoña, which also has a beautiful beach and lots of accommodation options. I stay in bed and write, feeling we are safe.

Breakfast is a strained, polite affair. After some to-ing and fro-ing we decide to separate. He sets off for a campground some 30k down the road where he’s hoping to share a cabin with another pilgrim from the badass girl gang, after which we all plan to reunite at an infamous albergue in Guemes. As he’s about to leave, the light is really pretty so I raise my camera to get a photo. “Nope!” he shouts and ducks out. Things have changed, I guess.

I retire to what is now MY private cabin (until the insanely generous checkout time of noon) to write and recharge with my favourite fuel solitude.

To take the stress out of the day, I book a bed in a youth hostel in Santoña. But as I lie back and watch the sky clear up, it occurs to me I might not even go. Maybe what I wanted, after all the faff, was to stay here on my own? Maybe that’s a totally avoidant behaviour that has probably and will probably continue to cost me friendships? Maybe that’s okay?

A few days ago I was reading a book called In Praise of Difficult Women: Life Lessons From 29 Heroines Who Dared to Break the Rules, because I will read everything Cheryl Strayed touches. In it, Karen Karbo wrote about JK Rowling:

To be blasé about what others view as a shortcoming is pure difficult woman. Please join me in a thought exercise: That thing you hate about yourself? Accept it now. Make no excuses for it. Be inspired by Jo Rowling, and embrace your complexities! Your public, like hers, will simply have to deal with them.

True, ol’ JK shortly thereafter got way cancelled, and also true, being “difficult” is perhaps not ALWAYS an admirable life goal. But if you have a problem with people-pleasing, occasionally striving for it isn’t the end of the world. “Difficult” was my father’s favourite complaint about me when I was a kid. “Krånglig,” in Swedish. “Why must you be so krånglig?” echoes in my mind to this day when I fail to function along the most direct routes of the mind.

And so, I snuggle up with my tendency to push people away and spend a glorious morning catching up on writing beneath the campground’s cozy blankets.

Around ten past midday, I’m getting ready to leisurely saunter out of my cabin when I realise the disaster – the phone I thought was charging while I was tapping away on it with my excited little fingers was not plugged in, and I’m at 19%. Before I’ve even begun my very confusing, 30k, already much-too-delayed hike across motorways and unmarked sidepaths. Fuck. It’s a six hour walk if I DON’T get lost. Good luck with that. There are no towns or shops along the way, and all I’ve got is fruit, chocolate and a tin of sardines.

An image of me, lost and starving as the sun sets over another psycho killer holiday home, flashes before my eyes as I start making my way to reception. Which is where I meet Ole and Sabine, cheerful German holiday-makers on their way to Laredo in a camping van. What should I have done, chosen certain death!?

And still, as they drop me off just above Laredo not even ten minutes later, I do feel a bit of guilt. I did ask them to stop sooner, so I’d get at least 15k in, but there was nowhere safe to do so on the A-8. So arrived at Laredo I am, at 12:27, with a half-charged iPhone battery thanks to Sabine and Ole’s five star Uber service. Soz. Pure bad pilgrim. As penance, I decide to scale the mountain at the edge of town, where I eat my lunch staring philosophically at the appropriately named Puerto de La Soledad. Ralph must be somewhere along the N-634, or maybe walking up some slippery hill inland, if he took the longer, scenic route, which, let’s face it, he probably did. Was I mean in any way? Did I fuck up? Did I lead him on? I think no. I think we met, connected very strongly, explored our connection, and then that connection turned out to not signify the obvious physical and emotional compatibility that I believe we should all strive for. I think that’s okay, but still, a part of me feels bad. An appropriately guilty conscience, or the narcissistic vestiges of a slowly crumbling pattern of people-pleasing? Jury’s out.

We did talk about attachment the day before, establishing that I’m avoidant and he’s anxious, types that often attract each other and then spend the rest of their lives in a devilish dance of childhood abandonment trauma reenactment. So who knows. Maybe dude is just practicing self-care.

After lunch I stroll down into Old Town, which is very pretty, and then onto the beach, which is huge, sandy, and also very pretty. I am so happy to be alone. There’s going to be learnings about solitude for me on this trip, I can feel it.

Two essay titles I think about on my solitary walk through Laredo: “That’s Cheating! Neo-Catholic Discourses on Suffering Along the Camino de Santiago,” and, “It’s not ALL Our Fault; in Defense of the Love-Seeking Avoidant.”

The rest of the time I spend thoroughly enjoying myself, running after butterflies and learning about sandflowers. I suppose these activities are possible also in company. I think one of my behaviours may be that I give too much of myself in social interactions, which causes a need to withdraw and recharge, which causes sadness in those I withdraw from who thought they’d found someone who wanted to play as much as they did. I mean I do. Just not as often. Is this terrible?

I don’t think so. But maybe I should be clearer upfront. Get a face tattoo or something. A scarlet A for Avoidant – love me like you would a cat; caress me don’t hold me; trust that I’ll come back and (most likely) I will. Avoidants do want love, too. Our anxiety just shows up in different ways.

The beach walk in Laredo is interminable. Flat, hot, hard. There are no other pilgrims, until, after about an hour and a half of walking on the grass next to the stone path, a backpack-carrying man I’ve never seen before appears on a bench. He’s got lots of tribal tattoos, long wiry hair and a wild look about him. We nod to each other, and I walk on. Soon I hear him walking behind me, which totally breaks the illusion of solitude I’ve been enjoying all day. So I sit down on a bench to write down some scenes that have come to me for a novel set at an ayahuasca camp – the one that made me miss three turns on my way up from Deba to the weed hotel – and wild tribal guy walks past again. Another hola. “A Dutch Jason Momoa,” appears in my head, although I have, of course, no idea where he’s from. But he does look like Momoa, if Momoa had lived another very difficult fifteen years.

After a few minutes, I get back up and walk to the end of the beach promenade in glorious solitude. There’s a ferry from Laredo to Santoña, and before the ferry there is a restaurant, and at the restaurant terrace is Dutch Momoa. He waves grandiosely – arm straight up, several back-and-forths – so I walk up to say hi. Without preamble, he launches into a story about a crazy albergue owner stealing his food the night before. Woah, can he talk. I ask if I can join him, and in-between bits of rushed narrative about the albergue owner getting drunk, a Spanish girl showing up after being robbed and Dutch Momoa offering her his bed to sleep on the floor “like a guard dog,” I manage to get an orange juice and coffee ordered.

Before our drinks show up I’ve learnt that he got sentenced to three months rehab for driving under the influence, celebrated his release by buying a bottle of vodka, then spent eleven years in the Peruvian jungle drinking shit tons of ayahuasca. He doesn’t seem to be into much of a back-and-forth, so I sit back and listen, ask a few questions, and enjoy the ride. Man sure is an adventurer. He’s walking from his home in Belgium (although, turns out he is, in fact, Dutch, so yes, I am a seer) all the way to Finisterre (2,700 km, apparently) and sleeps outside. Usually does 40k a day. He talks about transmuting dark energies and being a cycle breaker. His healing, he says, is for the previous seven generations of addicts.

“They did not know. Their actions came from not-knowing. But I,” – he points to himself, to his deeply furrowed, leathery skin; his bright blue drinker’s eyes; his crazy, wiry and still somehow sexy, disastrous, knowing being – “I know. So it’s up to me. Do I want to keep writing the same story? Or do I ‘put a point.’ Turn the page. And write a different story?”

I ask if he has been able to forgive his parents. He tells me about an awful event that happened when he was three, how grandmother ayahuasca helped him see what had actually happened, how he asked his mother but she refused to talk about it. His father – also an alcoholic – had already killed himself, so he couldn’t ask him. But it doesn’t matter, he says. “You don’t need to go back. You just need to go forward.”

“But don’t you need to go back and re-experience the trauma in order to heal it?” I ask, all objective and stuff. “Don’t you need to know what happened?”

He shakes his mad explorer’s head. “No. It doesn’t matter what happened. You don’t need to know. It’s irrelevant. Forget about the past. All you can control is the future.”

Dutch Momoa, Camping Playa Arenillas’s philosophical-whiteboarder-in-chief, and every basic Camino bitch all agree, then: you’ve just got to keep walking.

Basic Camino Bitch. New blog name?

Anyhoo. I don’t know how long we sit there, but I learn a lot. At the end I pay for his coffee, feeling like I want to give this in exchange for the huge amount of novel inspiration + eerily spot-on life advice he’s given me. We stand up to get the ferry – and who do we run into?

You know it. Got Into Berghain, whom I don’t feel bad calling by his original fake name anymore, now that he’s being all weird with me. He certainly looks surprised to see me in Laredo, not to mention in Laredo while having a coffee with The Man of Men. The vibe is awkward. All three of us get the ferry across. Dutch Momoa stops outside a supermarket and gives us both Buen Camino hugs, and GIB and I walk on. Soon, the turning for my hostel shows up, and GIB all but runs off up the path. No hugs.

To reach the hostel, I have to walk way out of town, past anchovy canning factories and smelly swamps into a weird industrial-looking area. But hey, can’t argue with €7,55 a night. Once I’m inside the hostel it’s all chill though, and I end up in a room with Gertrude, a German girl I made friends with in Azkiku, and a new German girl who seems super sweet. All pilgrims.

Later new German girl, Gertrude and I go out for food and wine and lots of catch-ups. I tell them about the serial killer house and the weird morning and Mr Man. G spins off on a soliloquy on male sexuality that feels a bit Jordan B P but what the hell do I know. We all have cheesecake. G and I talk about abandonment triggers and bus cheats. I’m really starting to feel at home on the Camino.

We go back to sleep in a warm dorm of six women I all know. I am so glad it’s only week two of this life.

#writing #justkeepwalking #CherylStrayed #soulsearching #traumabonds #avoidantattachment #trauma #foodporn #anxiousattachment #forgiveness #CaminodelNorte #essaytitles #ayahuasca #travel #Cantabria #anxiousavoidantdanceofdeath #thenovel #hiking #CaminodeSantiago #SantaMaria #peoplepleasing

Day 10: Ontón to Islares (30,9k)

The next day is a doozy. Ralph and I set off after a breakfast of creamy coffee and pre-sliced toast with the two jams. Today we talk about string theory (him), Taoism (me), and relevant childhood trauma (both). It’s an “alternative route” kind of day, so after about an hour of walking along pretty scary motorway, we turn off towards the coast. We’re the only ones there and the path gets pretty hairy – we pass a collapsed tunnel, crumbly hills and at disused railway bridge jutting out dramatically from a cliff over the sea.

In Castro, we find another few pilgrims and have a swim in some unbelievably clear water. A Spanish silver fox in blue Speedo’s and white AirPods lends me his goggles, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many fish. There’s too many fish! My plan on befriending the deep I fear goes all awry as I come out more scared of the creatures beneath the surface, but the swim is very nice. We eat some leftover hummus and tabbouleh that tastes incredible considering I’ve brought it from Bilbao. After this, Ralph still wants a hot meal but I’m satisfied so he goes with a German girl and I walk on.

I’m meant to go straight to Islares so I can surf if there’s waves, but on the way I pass a beach that’s way to pretty not to make love to. So I stop to wade in the clear waters once more, staring dreamily at rocks and shells, when a man in full diving gear carrying THREE HARPOONS rocks up. He splashes around by the cliff edge for a long time, and when he finally comes over to the beach, my eyes are like saucers.

“Are you fishing?” I ask.

He nods, grimly.

“Did you catch any?”

“Por el culo,” he replies, which translates as “up the ass,” as in, more often than not, “why don’t you go take it up the ass and stop bothering me, you stupid Swede.”

And then he sashays away, leaving the water to display, sure enough tied to what I guess could rightly be described as the “ass” area of his wetsuit, a string of brightly coloured, fat, spiky fish. Whattttt.

Encouraged by his obvious enthusiasm for my interest, I asked for a photo. Here’s the one where he looks the least uncomfortable:

After this wonderful interlude, the trouble begins. See, today is the day I finally give in and download every pilgrim’s favourite app Mapy. Mapy, which allows you to download offline maps, tells me there’s an alternative trail from Castro to Islares running along the coast. Off we go.

It starts great, wide blue views, all that jazz. Then, the route heads into the woods. Into a field. To a field. A private one. The route simply stops, although I can see it continuing on the other side. I look around. Any angry farmers? Nope. So I cross the field, which looks to be in fallow anyway, then walk out a gate on the other side.

The trail, significantly smaller now, continues into another wood. I come to a walled garden. Rather beautiful. There’s a stone well! Like in the fairy tales! I double check Mapy, but yes, I am right on the trail it suggests, so open a gate, walk through the garden, out another gate.

I come to a clearing full of allotments. The plants are almost all dead, but then I remember the hospitalero in Merkina-Xemein said there’s a hose pipe ban due to drought. So I guess a whole allotment of dying plants isn’t really a surprise. Weird how it’s all overgrown though. And why are all the rakes, wheelbarrows, shovels so rusty?

The trail narrows yet more and continues into another wood. The overhead foliage is very low now, and I have to bend down to pass certain parts. In bits the trail is not really a trail, but I can still make my way through the tall grass. Although the constant rustling around me does make me a little worried about snakes. Lucia and I saw a big one on the trail the other day. Thankfully, we had time to stop and let it slither away.

Here, I cannot see my feet.

Eventually, even walking on blindly through underbrush becomes impossible, as a huge metal gate blocks my path. Again, there are no signs saying private property. But should I really be here? My phone is starting to run out of battery so I don’t really want to use it, but I have to check – am I really meant to be here?

Mapy says yes.

So I push open the heavy iron gate. It’s rusty and broken, so getting it off the stone wall that supports it is hard. It creaks ominously.

I am in yet another walled garden, but these walls are higher. And while the other garden did have gates, it also had a pretty obvious trail through it. This one, no. In front of me is a field of dead tomatoes, and next to it, swathes of blackened ground. Something has been burnt.

I start walking along the black grass, when suddenly, behind a tree, I see a dog. Shit. Am I about to get mauled by a rabid, private property-defending guard dog? Still, I walk on, and when the dog sees me it starts wagging it’s tail. Phew. But then it whimpers, and scurries around a corner. Only then do I see that it’s bound by a heavy chain around its neck, to a concrete building with dark, iron-barred windows.

Okay. Weird. Something tells me I shouldn’t go say hi to the dog. I keep walking towards the other end of the garden, feeling like I’m now being observed by the killer in a Scandinavian noir. I finally get there, and there’s no gate. Nowhere along the whole wall. Which, I realise now, has barbed wire above the stone. Fuck, again.

I decide to turn back. The dog is nowhere to be seen. Why is it tied up out here? Why has no one come out of the house? Am I being watched? By who? Do they have a gun? Am I about to become the inspiration for another season of True Detective?

Though that was a great series, I have only just started to think maybe this life won’t be so bad after all so walk as fast as I can back to the gate, out the gate, and all but run back the way I came. Past the allotments, through the walled creepy well garden, across the eerie disused fields. When I finally reach the motorway, I’ve never been so happy to see asphalt. I walk all the way to Islares without stopping, barely noticing how bad my legs ache until I get there.

New choice. Fuggedaboutit.

Islares, however, is stunning. I have the best beer of my life, check into our private cabin and head to the beach to do some yoga, but for the third time today, am unable to resist Cantabria’s crystal-clear water. So I get in wearing my hiking shorts and bra, and in the water make the acquaintance of a well-groomed Spanish gentleman of about fifty.

Gentleman is from here, and agrees, Cantabria’s water is “una pasada.” I have no idea what a pasada is, but nod. We start talking Camino. He’s done it three times. Alone, with wife, with his kids. That was una pasada. Oh I’m here to surf? I should’ve seen the beach two days ago! Three hundred people, at least. Una pasada!

After a while, I go back to shower at the camping, where the water pressure is out of this world. “Que pasada,” I hear myself say. Ralph shows up, we get changed, and head back to the beach, where Pasada is STILL swimming. “Every day!” He shouts at us from the water. Then, to Ralph. “Get in! Hombre, es una pasada!”

We sit down and have a smoke. I write this. Now we’re about to have burgers at a surf shack. The camping gives philosophical advice. Life is good.

“Life is like riding a bike. To stay balanced, you’ve got to keep moving forward.”

#beachlife #soulsearching #swimming #locals #Mapysaysyes #CaminodelNorte #travel #Cantabria #hiking #CaminodeSantiago #SantaMaria